Bubblegum Crisis 2033: Imaginary Lost Episodes
by Zerohour
Summary: The newest ep: A category 10 Typhoon is coming toward Mega Tokyo. Surely even Genom can't be this crazy? How will the Knight Sabers stop that?
1. Missing Act

Episode 9: Missing Act.

            "VISION! VISION! VISION!"        

            The loud and restless crowd shouted endlessly as Kou looked on silently from behind some of the sound equipment, with his muscles flexing and relaxing. He checked his gun concealed inside his jet black bomber jacket one more time, before casting his gaze toward the trailer, where Reika Chang, known as "Vision," was doing her own final make-up check. He narrowed his eyes as he recalled the conversation he and Miss Chang had before the concert.

            _"It'll be ok, Kou. Really,"_ Reika had said with that silent and lonely look of hers that he saw more than enough times after her sister's death. _"I think I'll just have to take care of Hu Ban, and sing at the same time. I…I don't want to run away from my dream anymore…I…I don't want to give up."_

            Kou was silent, but he knew he had to try to make her see some sense. _"Reika, the world of business is cut-throat, you know that. And our revenge isn't complete."_ Reika had been looking at her sister's engagement ring for a long while, before looking up at him with these doe-like pleading eyes. _"Ok, Kou. But just one more time, please? I've already promised that I perform this one. Then I'll quit. Alright?"_ Her gazed turned to the mirror. _"I would like to do one more check on my make-up. Could you leave now? Oh, and I heard there was some trouble at gate C-6 and the security can't seem to take care of it. Can you go check?"_

            Kou had looked Reika in the mirror. He tried not to curl his lips. He wasn't sure if he should believe her or not. _"I'll go take care of that." _He wasn't going to argue with Miss Chang, the now only daughter and heir to the Changs' group, Hu Ban. _"But take care of yourself, ok?"_ He couldn't help but speak suddenly. _"You've lost too much weight lately."_

            The last thing he saw before he left for gate C-3 was her weak smile.

* * * * * * * * * * * 

            It turned out that there were two trouble spots. Some big drunken brute was giving the much smaller Japanese security personnel a hard time at gate C-3, but a couple of quick hand chops to the neck, and a good kick in the stomach from Kou put him face down on the ground. As Kou checked on the writhing and puking person, he was relieved the drunk wasn't a boomer.

            "Fools. I guess people here have no proper training." Kou cursed under his breath, but thanked the guards politely for their assistance. The other trouble spot was on the other side of the stadium, much farther from the trailer but located behind it. "Gate E-2?" The shorter guard at C-3 was looking confused. "I don't remember anybody actually uses that gate often. What type of trouble could happen there?"

            Kou was already walking away. There has been no report about E-2 after he took care of the drunkard. He walked back to where the sound equipment was. Something was gnawing at him in the back of his mind…

            "I'm just too tired. I guess I'll go check." He started toward the back of the stadium where Gate E-2 was.

            He stopped suddenly, frowned, and looked at his watch. 7:37 PM. _It's a little bit late._ He changed his direction toward Reika's trailer.

            He reached the door, and was about to knock, when he smelled something all too familiar, and brought back painful memories…

            "Blood?" He muttered, and instantly, he tried to open the door. 

            It wasn't locked. He quickly went in and looked around. Reika's trailer was so much bigger than the average make-up trailer that there was a separate room from where the performer put on the make-up. The smell came from that direction. He instinctive rushed there, cursed himself for nothing going to Reika's room first, but opened the door anyway.

            The head make-up artist was lying at his feet. Blood poured out of the gaping hole in her chest. 

            "Wasn't a gun shot…" He calmly and quickly checked the wound. Looked like a puncture wound instead. He hurried to Reika's room, and opened the door.

            She was nowhere to be found. 

            The sound of the crowd shook the trailer and Kou felt his brain was vibrating, as he felt blood rushing through his body, up and filling his head. His temple was pulsing hard.

            The back of Reika's trailer had a huge, jagged hole.

* * * * * * * * * * * 

"I swear I've had it with these people!" Priss slammed her bike helmet down on the table when she saw the news on Linna's TV. The announcer continued: "…so the incident at the AD Police Headquarters was pointed out by a spokes person of Genom as a random terrorist attack that had nothing to do with the company…"

            "_The company_, he said." Priss growled. "Did you hear that? He called them _the company_. As if he actually works for them."

            "You're over reacting here, Priss." Linna seemed to shrug. "It's just the news." She yawned. 

            "Just the news, huh?" Priss walked toward the table, and picked up the newspaper, and shoved it to her friend's face. "Well, then tell me, why does the news never mention the name Genom with the word, guilty?"

            "Genom is innocent: We know nothing." Linna read the headline in a lower voice. She paused. "Yeah, I know," she said while playing with her tie. The announcer continued: "…as there is no further evidence that Genom was directly involved in anyway, the investigation is at a stand still…" 

            "NO EVIDENCE? You're saying there's NO EVIDENCE?" Priss's eyes widened. "Oh man! I can't believe this!" She threw her hands up, but quickly slammed the table with her right fist.

            "Careful, this is new." Linna said in a mild voice. "Anyway, it does suck but we can't do much about it." She looked out of the window. "Sometimes I think the media, the AD Police, and even the government is owned by Genom."

            "Gee, you think?" Nene said with a not quite sarcastic voice as she stepped out from the kitchen with a cup of ice cream in her hand. "Maybe that's just it. Maybe Genom does own everything."

            "Well, at least it doesn't own _us._" Priss said while slamming her right fist into her left palm. "I say, we go charging straight into the Tower and take over, find whoever the bastard in charge is, and…"

            "Careful Priss," Linna cautioned. "That's against the rules and you know it."

            "Yes, article 2 said…" Nene said with her eyes on the ice cream.

            "Shut up." Priss growled. "I've had enough of the goddamned rules."

            Nene seemed to wince. "You're ruder then usual. What's gotten into you anyway?"

            Priss stared at her for a second before she spoke. "Look here, how many times did we have to clean Genom's mess, adding last time involving your chief's niece?"

            Nene sighed, and then smiled as she swallowed another scoop of chocolate ice cream. "We do get paid for the cleaning, you know. Mmm, this is good."

            "Yeah, so you can feed your fat gut!" Linna made a pinch at Nene's waist. Nene frowned. "How mean!" She pouted. "I do have a real job, you know, unlike some of us..." 

"Hmm…?" Priss cast an evil eye in Nene's direction; Nene stuck her tongue out, and then went back to eating. 

            Linna looked at her watch. "When is Vision going to be on tonight?"

            Nene's eyes bulged. "Shouldn't you know?"

            Linna looked up at the ceiling. "I've lost track." She shrugged. "Working too hard, I suppose."

            "Thanks, guys." Priss leaned forward and stared at the two. "I _do_ have a gig tomorrow night, you know. In fact…" 

            "What, what?" Nene asked while leaning forward. 

            Priss shrugged and leaned back. "Come to hot legs and find out." She half smiled.

            "…This just in." The news anchor said suddenly. "The internationally famous singer Vision who agreed to sign a new contract with Toshiba EMI was declared missing by her management…"

            "What?" The three women exclaimed collectively, and all eyes turned to the TV.

            "Hey that's Leon!" Nene said loudly.

            "Shh!" Linna said.

            Priss simply stared hard at the TV with her hand formed into fists. 

            "…We think a boomer did it, look at this hole in the wall…" On TV, Leon pointed at the wall to Vision's dressing room. "I don't know what Gen…was thinking, I mean, I have some idea but I sure am not gonna tell ya, so go away already and let us to our job." Leon seemed to storm off. The announcer continued: "Although the police and the higher ups at the AD Police HQ do not think a reputable company like Genom can be involved in things like this, it seems like some officers on the police force disagree…"

            "Bastards." Priss seethed between her gritted teeth.

            "…A spokes person at Genom denies involvement…"

* * * * * * * * * * 

"We have nothing more to tell you all." Madigan waved her hand, and the two huge men by her side started to shove the reporters back, some of the reporters falling down the front steps of the Genom Tower. With a few snickers, the two followed Madigan into the building.

            _What is the chairman thinking anyway? We have no need for their technology!_ She mused darkly, _Chang's group never had any power over us._

* * * * * * * * * * 

            Priss's hand machine gun blazed in the dark of the night, the sparkles lit the smelly and scummy street. The boomer jumped up, and kicked Priss in the head, as she flew backwards. Linna ran toward the boomer as it landed, and with a snap of her head, the cutting ribbons became sharp blades shooting at the Boomer's arms. It growled, turned and quickly grabbed the ribbons, and with a quick sling by the boomer, Linna went flying toward the front of the abandoned store. Smash! The glass shattered as Linna crashed through the display window.

            "Shit!" Priss yelled as she made another charge, her fist slamming into the boomer's face, and she kicked the boomer in the waist. It grabbed her without flinching, and Priss found herself being slammed into the ground. "Damn, that hurts!" She could hear the sound of a sword blade being snapped and locked into position. As she looked behind the boomer, she saw Sylia swing her right arm, then a light flashed by, and instantly a orange-yellowish slimy fluid was all over her. With a loud clank, the boomer's left arm fell on the ground. Priss quickly jumped up and back, with her fist aimed toward the boomer's face, four or five spikes shot out and raced toward the boomer's neck and face. Before it could scream, the spikes had already penetrated its skull and throat. It made another attempt to grab at Priss, who gracefully back flipped out of harm's way. The boomer all of the sudden lost its balance and fell on its face. Its body was thrusting about violently. Sylia raised her hands, the explosion tubes extended, and she thrust her hand into the boomer's body. It exploded and made a bigger mess of organic parts, synthetic fiber, and orange fluid. Sylia lifted her hands, and quickly and silently stepped backwards.

            "Whew! That was that." She said simply.

            "Uh…we won?" Nene looked around a few times, and then quickly ran up and stopped next to Sylia. She was standing somewhere not too far off, but well out of the harm's way. "This is like, the third one tonight, isn't it?" 

Sylia shook her head. "Well, I didn't think they could mass produce new military types this soon, but it looks like they can." She paused. "I suppose it was inevitable."

            "I'm not sure if 3 in a row qualifies as 'mass produce'." Linna said while shaking her head. "I'm just too tired." 

            "True, but all three had very similar designs, and their weapons and movements weren't too different from one another, here for instance…" Sylia was about to continue, but she took a look at her colleagues' tired faces and hunched shoulders. She smiled, and said: "Well, it can't be helped. Let's call it a night." She paused and looked up. It was a new moon. "I hope," she added, and then looked at her teammates. "Let's go."

            All the Knight Sabers except Priss got into the mobile pit, and drove off. Priss quickly hopped onto her bike, kicked it in gear, and left.

* * * * * * * * * *

            "This doesn't give us time to find Vision! I mean, Reika!" Linna whined while holding her head. She fell into the sofa in Sylia's living room. "It's like 3 in the morning, and we still have no clue where she is or who took her!"

            Nene was sleeping on the floor.

            "Oh man, this bites. All this thrashing but no information!" Priss stretched and grumbled. "I do wish we could just hit Genom head on."

            Sylia looked grim. "I doubt we could really disturb this balance that both sides helped to create," she said in a low voice.

            "What?" Priss looked up at Sylia. 

Sylia sighed. "Nothing Priss. I think it's too late for us to come up with anything; you guys should go home and get some rest. Unless…" She glanced at Nene, who flipped over. 

"I'm going, see you tomorrow." Priss stood up, and walked out. "Coming, Linna?" She yelled from outside the door. 

"Shh! You'll wake Mackie!" Linna cautioned. She turned to Sylia. "Call me ASAP when you come up with something. I've already lost Irene, I don't want to lose Reika as well…" Her voice was a little hoarse from the fatigue.

Sylia nodded. "Now please go home and get some rest."

Linna woke Nene, who grumbled and rubbed her eyes, and all three including Priss left Sylia's place.

As Sylia gazed at the pollution blackened sky, and then at the direction where she knew the Genom Tower was in the distance, as if her gaze could cut through the buildings which blocks her view of the Tower, her eyes slowly narrowed. Her right hand slowly curled into a fist. Then she sighed, uncurled her hand, and turned off the light.

Perhaps Priss is right after all… 

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

             Quincy took a deep breath and sunk back in his leather executive chair. His eyes were closed as he listened to Madigan's report on the data extraction process, which they started when the prisoner was brought in.

            "Ah, Chairman?" Madigan had just finished her report, she asked slowly. "If you will forgive me for asking something?"

            Although Quincy only half opened his eyes, Madigan still felt the glare. She silently swallowed. 

            "Yes?" Quincy said. His tone was neutral enough, she decided.

            "Well, sir, I'm not so sure what good will it do to take her in, and getting information out of her. I'm pretty sure she has no knowledge of the designs of the multi-legged all-terrain combat vehicle her family developed, or the Changs' supposed recent secret dealings with that accursed…" her lips curled. "…With that accursed super boomer that the Knight Sabers supposedly destroyed a while back. I really don't see her use…"

            "That is quite enough, Madigan." Quincy said with a deep voice. She thought the chairman's desk and her chest vibrated with the bass sound. She quickly shut herself up while he continued. "We're a respectable company, but then again, sometimes it _is_ beneficial to deal with some people who are _discontent_…" She could hear the slightest hint of threat, and couldn't help but shuddered as he spoke. "…with our often too lenient ways toward the public, this nation, even the world." He paused, and she found herself looking at the sharply cutting stare that came from under his deeply furrowed brows. She was silently feeling proud knowing that she was one of the very few in the company who could stand being gazed by him. "At any rate, since I do own the boomer technology, and Largo was a boomer, I have the right to deal with him, and his potential associates anyway I wish." He paused and leaned back. "You were right. The Hu Ban is no threat to us whatsoever, and their foolish creations mean nothing to me. I could crush them right at this moment if I wanted." 

            Madigan trembled at the word "crush", but she felt delightful and frightened at the same time.

            Quincy continued: "However, a lesson does need to be taught. At any rate, our public media, military, police force…I mean _Mega Tokyo's_ police force," he said with a sardonic grin. "They will not disagree with me, will they Madigan?"

            She tried not to swallow hard as she faced his eyes. "No Chairman, they will not." She said firmly. "I'll see to it myself." She added quickly.

            "Don't worry yourself too much with trivial matters as such, just continue doing what you usually do the best," the chairman said with his eyes half closed as he leaned back and sighed silently with a smile. "Cancel the meetings this afternoon. And tell the new Minister of Defense that I will see him when I have the time for him."

            "Yes sir!" Madigan said. She turned and quickly left the chairman's office. The huge entrance to the office that looked like a gaping mouth. She closed the doors, and then stepped out into the brightly lit hallway.

            She allowed herself a cold grin before she disappeared into the elevator.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

            "Same old story, huh?" Leon was practically up on the Chief's desk yelling at the top of his lungs. "No one's really guilty here, the top brass is closing the investigation. End of story. Is that all?" 

            Daley thought Leon's voice couldn't get any louder. Then he shrugged and plugged his ears with his index fingers. But the sound was still coming through.

"Damn it! Chief! Haven't you had enough with these motherfuckers? For God's sake it was your own niece last time! Don't you give a damn?"

            The chief yelled back: "Look here, I would very much like to do something about this, but so what? Even with the testimony from the boomer designer, there isn't anything that we could do to Genom itself!" 

            Leon's face looked twisted. "Why not? He did work for Genom!"

            The Chief yelled again: "All Genom would say was that this disgruntled employee acted on his own, and that Genom was going to fire him anyway. That was that!"

            "Screw Genom!" Leon finally completely exploded. "I'm gonna take one of them K-12 ATs, charge into the Tower, and take out the lot of them!"

            "GODDAMN IT! LEON!" The Chief screamed. "Who the hell do you think really owns us anyway?"

            Daley took his fingers out of his ear holes, as the office all of sudden grew deathly silent. He looked out of the glass door to the chief's office, and found everyone's eyes staring into the office, at the chief. 

            Leon's face turned frosty, which Daley decided was a very rare sight indeed. "Really owns us? What's that supposed to mean?" Leon demanded in a far calmer voice then Daley expected. 

            The chief turned aside. "Like you didn't know," He said. Leon was about to speak again when the chief added in a lower voice: "Nothing's going on here. Look, why don't you take the rest of the day off? Get some coffee, and go to a hotel with…ahem, I mean go get some beer or something with Daley here, forget about this whole thing, and let the regular police handle it, huh?" He fell into his chair, looking deflated with his arms akimbo and gaze lowered.

            Leon stayed where he was for a moment, and as Daley watched, he slowly straightened himself up. Daley swallowed. He's never seen Leon's face cold like that before. "Let's go Daley." Leon said as he was walking out of the office. He stopped at the door. "Chief, next time it may not be just your niece. It maybe your own daughter." Leon said calmly before slamming the door shut. He took huge strides and Daley found himself running after him. The two left the office quickly.

            The office was still deathly silent. 

* * * * * * * * * * * * 

            Seeing Nene's exaggerated expression, Sylia had to smile, but she knew that she probably frowned a little. "I hate to tell you this, Nene, but frankly I'm not even surprised."

            She found Nene rushing through the door and almost knocking over at least three customers in the process just a few minutes before. They went into Sylia's living room, the Knight Sabers' private council chamber of war, leaving Mackie to look after the store.

            Nene's eyes were bulging out of her skull. "Really? Sure I knew they're our sponsors, but they actually own us? I mean, who could've thought of that?"

            "Well, maybe everybody's too busy to think of it." Sylia grinned. _Some people can be so naïve…_"Anyway, that doesn't solve our problems whatsoever. I've called for a meeting, so let's just wait for Priss and Linna to show up first." She paused. "I've got something interesting here to show you."

            After Priss and Linna came and sat down, everybody exchanged some pleasantries, before Sylia took out a folded newspaper, and a fax. "Take a look." She said coolly, waiting for everyone's reaction.

            "But…" Nene looked up immediately. "But Genom…? They requested…?" 

            Linna snapped her head up. "I didn't think Kou realized…that I was…"

            "Apparently he isn't stupid." Sylia said calmly. "That, or Ms. Chang told him." 

            "That's unlikely because Reika isn't…" Linna stammered.

            "You don't know her that well, Linna." 

            "But…"

            Priss shot up from her seat. "What is this? Genom asking the Knight Sabers to do a job for them?" She threw the newspaper down. "What the hell is going on, Sylia?" 

            Sylia glanced at her before she spoke. "My source told me only this: they're paying 40,000,000 yen up front, and the rest is paid upon completion." She shrugged. "It IS a job."

            "That's a job I will not take." Priss sat back down with arms akimbo. "Anyway, I thought we dealt with Largo's group." She spat the name "Largo".

            "It's not Largo exactly they're trying to deal with. The specific request which my source handed to me stated that they're trying to deal with a potential Largo-like super boomer, who may very well be the origin." Sylia said grimly.

            Priss frowned. "The origin of what?"

            Sylia was silent. She found Linna's eyes bored into her face. "There's something you're not telling us, what is it?" She looked concerned.

            Sylia stayed silent.

            Everyone was looking at her. 

            "Well," Priss said suddenly. "I sure as hell am not going to work for Genom!"

            "What about Kou's request?" Linna said. She sounded uncertain. "Aren't we trying to find Reika anyways? Maybe we can combine our resources with theirs…"

            "It isn't that simple, Linna." Sylia said patiently. "Now with Reika, Kou, and assuming the core group of the Hu Bang knows who you are, there is a good chance that they will try to drag you, a member of Knight Sabers into the conflict between the Hu Bang and Genom, which in time could involve all of us."

            "Oh _I_ _see_." Priss said sarcastically. "Since Genom's offering more money then Reika's family, this makes the decision hard, isn't it?" She stood up. "If that's the way it is then I'm leaving." She began to turn. 

Sylia grabbed her arm. "Please wait a minute, Priss. It isn't like that at all." She said quietly. "Please just listen to me."

            Priss seems to tense up for a second, before deflating and sat back down. "Fine, let's hear it."

            Sylia cleared her throat, and braced herself. "The way I see it, Genom's offer is a trap, but we do need to find out what they're up to, as far as the Hu Ban's request…" She glanced at Linna, who looked back with urgency on her face. "We will help out. Anyway, we do have to get Miss Vision back, or Priss won't have her special guest at her gig later this week. Isn't that right, Priss?"

            Sylia chuckled, as Priss's shocked expression was priceless. "Hey! How did you find out? I was going to keep it as a surprise!" she asked while sounding slightly indignant. Sylia smiled. "I figured you being the local talent and wanting to actually make friends with Miss Vision this time around would like to ask her to perform at your usual hang out, so I simply asked around." She winked. Nene seemed to be surprised at her reaction.

            Linna's face brightened up. "Hey, maybe after we save her again, this time we could ask her make Priss as her special guest next time she performs on stage!" She turned and grabbed Priss's hands. "Doesn't that sound like a great idea?"

            Priss's face lit up for a second before she smirked. "Nah, I don't need that. I can make it myself, besides…"

            "No, no, no!" Linna said breathlessly. "We have to get Reika, I mean Vision to take you along, and then she could help you find a gig in a bigger place, and then…" Nene quickly cut in: "And _you_ could be Priss' manager, right?" She said with that gleam in her eye.

            "Well, yeah!" Linna said, and then laughed in a higher pitched voice. "We could make millions! Just think all the things we can have!"

            Priss held her forehead. "Oh please…"

            "Well anyway," Sylia said quickly. "It seems like we'll have to handle both ends at the same time." She nodded to Priss. "You go and find some information on the streets about Miss Vision's abductor. Linna, you go talk to Kou and his group." She turned to see a giggling Nene. "How about you find out as much information as you can on the AD Police's central network?"

            All three uttered agreements. "Then contact me when you find out something." Sylia said. "But don't go solo on me this time, got it?" Her eyes were on Priss the whole time.

            "Yeah, yeah." Priss said with a wave of her hand. The three left Sylia's room.

            Sylia stood alone in the middle of the room for a moment, before sighing deeply. "Father…I didn't ask to be it, did I?" She took a deep breath and stretched. "Well, it can't be helped." She walked toward the data room.

            _Maybe a war with Genom is inevitable after all._


	2. Two Faces

BGC Episode 10: Two Faces

            KABOOM!

            The glass of the phone booth shattered, as Priss quickly covered her head and face with her arms. The flying debris of glass was shredding her brand new leather biker's outfit into strips. The impact of the explosion sent the phone booth falling toward the pavement.

            "Oh shi…" Priss barely got her curse out from her mouth before she and the booth crashed into the pavement. She instantly felt a searing pain into her left thigh. "Ahh! Goddamned it!" 

            For a few heart-stopping seconds, she didn't move, then she tried to kick her way out of the booth, the pain in her leg made her scream. She thrashed with her arms, and felt her hands were being cut by what's left of the glass booth. With much shaking and trembling she stood up, pulled out the glass shard from her thigh, which made her bit her lower lip hard until it bled, and looked toward where she last heard the explosion.

            About a block and half away, there stood a huge boomer. Ignoring the pain, she almost wanted to lash out at the boomer, which had a piece of a car door in its right hand. Then she stopped cold.

            She forgot she wasn't wearing her hard suit. 

            The giant was about 12 feet high, a steely grayish blue of a grotesque creature, with heavily muscled arms and legs. One of the forearms had a huge gatling gun mounted in the place where usually a hand would be. The other had a tri-claw, looking sharp as surgical blades. On its back was some kind of backpack, Priss couldn't tell.

            She stared at it for a second before she did what she thought was the best thing to do in this situation: she took 3 huge steps toward her bike, which she parked at the curb where the phone booth used to stand. She jumped on it, quickly kicked it in gear, and raced away from the scene. She could barely lift her hands, but she pressed the communicator's button. 

            "I've already got the report, meet me at the corner 4 blocks down!" Was all Sylia said before the image disappeared from the watch screen.

            A loud gasp came from some of the bystanders, as Priss stole a look back.

            The boomer was chasing her. Its jets in the back and legs were spewing orange crimson flame, thrusting it forward. As Priss shifted to higher gear, she felt herself getting weaker. She had to swerve and avoid that car, which she just raced by after running the red light, but the boomer smashed through the convertible. She stole another look, and looking forward again, she gritted her teeth, as her bike got on the freeway.

            _If the bleeding doesn't stop…Man, I would really hate it if the bastard gets me here!_

            She barely realized that she couldn't meet Sylia at the street corner under this situation.

            The wind howled and she realized that she had no time to put on her helmet! She weaved and cut through the traffic, as the boomer made its own way through cars and trucks. She risked a glance back.

            Some thing shot from the boomer, straight at her. She avoided it barely in time. "What the?" She thought she saw a blue tentacle, or an arm. She wasn't sure.

            "Ahh!" She had to swerve hard to her left, because for some reason, the boomer had already landed right in front of her!

            _The bastard. Was it coming after me?_

            As Priss's bike crashed into the pavement, and she rolled and flipped painfully, she was dimly aware that something seemed to retract into the boomer's back as it landed. She closed her eyes, and lost consciousness.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

            "There is no time, I haven't got any reply from Priss. I'll be going first." Sylia yelled at the screen, before Linna could say anything, she shut it off. Suddenly, the door to the mobile pit slid open, and Nene, looking exhausted but relieved, hopped right in. Sylia had to allow herself to smile at that.

            "I'm here, Sylia. Where is Priss?" Nene asked immediately as she started to take off her AD Police uniform clothes. "I got here as soon as I could."

            "Two miles from here on the 4th free way." Sylia said, then she yelled toward the driver's seat in the front. "Mackie! Let's go! To where Priss' signal was last found.

* * * * * * * * * * * * 

            "As you're well aware, we don't make such products ourselves, but…" The non-descriptive man in black glasses said grimly, standing across from him, Sylia, in her full suit, smiled sardonically. 

            Moments before the huge boomer blew up a big section of downtown Mega Tokyo, Sylia met the Genom "representative" in the dark alley near the AD Police station. "That should help you to relax." Said the man from Genom. "After all, if you need to run away, the AD Police can't really catch you, and around here, I wouldn't do anything that would jeopardize this meeting anyway…"

            Sylia had already scouted the place out, and she received no information about any possible traps, either set by the AD Police, or Genom.

            _You never know, though._ She silently cautioned herself.

            "…As I was saying," The man continued. "Although we don't sell such things ourselves, there are some disgruntle employees, and others who may have stolen our technology, and applied it into military uses."

            Sylia laughed coldly.

            "Believe what you will." The man didn't flinch. "Here's the deal: we suspect the Super Boomer Largo, is still at large, but what worries us the most is not necessarily him or his new associates, one among which is the Chang group"

            Sylia quickly stifled a gasp. _Is it possible? Hu Ban and Largo?_

"We are more concerned with the Origin. We think that there is another super boomer out there, who could be the source of all boomers, and that's the one we would like to deal with."

            Sylia's eyes narrowed. She stared at the Genom operative. "I don't buy anything you just said. As for this Origin…" She winced, and then continued. "Why hire us? You and us aren't exactly friends."

            "As I said before, our _legitimate _product don't go around killing people, so whatever you have destroyed we couldn't careless." The man adjusted his dark sunglasses. "But as for this case, we simply don't wish to spend our own resources to track down Largo, or the Origin. All we want is destroy the threat of another super boomer who could coordinate with the Orbital Satellite Weapons. The Origin itself, as far as we're concerned, has nothing to do with our current business operations. We're partly curious as to how it would affect the function of all the boomers if we get to study it…"

            "Disgusting," Sylia muttered. Then she said: "So, what would the almighty Genom want us humble Knight Sabers do?"

            "Take out Largo, bring the Origin to us." The man seemed to smile. "Or if you prefer, destroy them both."

            Sylia just stared at him.

            "Do we have a deal?" The man asked in a neutral tone.

            "I'm sorry, but I simply don't trust you, or your company to deal with people fairly." She was smiling sarcastically under her helmet. "Not after last time."

            The man was silent. "Very well. I'm sorry it didn't work out." He seemed to shrug, and turned around. After walking a few steps toward the Benz that parked at the entrance, he spoke slowly.

            "It won't matter anyway. It will all be taken cared of. Good day, Ms. Stingray."

            Sylia felt a strong shocking and tingling sensation shooting up and down her body. "What?" She barely realized the words came out of her mouth.

            The man had already got in the car, and left.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

            Priss shook her head, and struggled to get herself off the pavement, with a shudder she stood up. 

            The huge monster was standing 15 feet away. It seemed to smile with all the teeth shown. Protruding from its back there were 8 leg/arm like things with a sharp single claw at the end of each one.

            Priss frowned. The design looked familiar…

            "I guess you've noticed my interesting design, Ms. Asagiri." The boomer spoke.

            Priss was taken aback. She took a step backwards. "How…how did hell did you know my name?"

            The boomer seemed to be unable to smile without its teeth bare. "Let's just say a certain friend of one of your friends, no, I mean one of your fellow teammates had a lot of interesting data in her head." It raised its claw arm, and the claws clanked as he closed his hand.

            Priss' eyes narrowed. _Who…?_

            The realization hit her like a tidal wave, which sent her reeling backwards. "You…you took Vision?" Priss' hands formed into fists. Blood from the cuts from the broken glass dripped from her hands.

            The boomer snickered. "One of my fellow operatives did. She was more stealthy, and does a great make up."

            Priss gritted her teeth. "You…you fucking bastard!"

            The boomer started to walk toward her. The toothy smile grew bigger. "It's time to end this conversation, Ms. Priss Asagiri, or should I say, Blue Knight Saber?"

            Priss looked around, she bit her lower lip. _Damn it! Only if I have my suit…_

 * * * * * * * * * * * 

            Quincy stared at the report, then at Madigan.

            "Why show me this? I told you this is no concern of mine." He threw the report on the table. It landed with a loud 'thud'. The sound resonated through out his large office. "These vigilantes can't harm us in anyway." He closed his eyes, and waved. "Take care of it." He leaned back in his chair.

            "I already have the boomer in sector A-24 changing its testing program to extermination program." Madigan said hesitantly.

            "Don't make me repeat myself." 

            Madigan shivered. "O…of course not. I deeply apologize." She bowed with her forehead close to the ground, and then she made a haste exit.

            A deathly silent moment followed, before Quincy muttered.

            "Stingray, huh? I thought Mason took care of all that, before he turned…" Quincy slowly opened his eyes. He stared at the report.

            _Origin. It is speculated that the daughter of the late Dr. Stingray could very well be the basis of his boomer design, in fact, some data suggests that perhaps she…"_

            He closed the data port, and sunk back into his chair.

            The office was deathly quiet.

* * * * * * * *  * * *

            "Mon…Monster…" Priss struggled to retreat back from the boomer, but her left thigh was throbbing non-stop. After the adrenaline filled bike ride, and the hard fall, she felt her legs was turning into rubber.

            The boomer took another step, and another, and another. It raised its gun hand, stopped in mid air, and then raised its claw hand instead. It now towers over Priss. 

            She didn't blink, but for one second, her friends the rest of the Sabers, and the orphanage flashed in her mind. 

            The claw was right above her head.

            "Have a nice trip to hell, Blue Saber." The boomer growled.

            "Fuck you." Priss seethed. 

            Something clicked in her mind, and she instinctively ducked her head. A split second later…

            BOOM!

            GRRRRRR!!!

            Priss heard hard and loud steps retreating away from her. She fell on her back while trying to get further away.

            "Priss-san!" Came Mackie's voice. She lifted her head to see the younger teenager in his specially designed armored suit. The missile cache on his suit was wide open, with more missiles ready, aimed at the monster boomer. 

            Thud! Ting!

            Priss heard sounds of metal boot hitting the pavement. She smiled, and looked up again. The back view of her friend's suit made her almost want to cry. Almost. She stood up with great difficulty. "Sy…Sylia…"

            "Don't move, Priss. Mackie will take you to the pit to get emergency treatment. Then he will take you to a hospital, and…" Sylia gestured, and Mackie moved. His footsteps made heavy clanking sounds against the pavement. "Are you alright, Priss?" Priss could feel Mackie's armored hands on her left arm. She leaned some of her weight on the pink Saber's shoulder.

            "Like…like hell I'm going to a hospital." Priss growled. "Mackie, take me to the pit so I can change…"

            "Priss." Sylia's warning voice came.

            "Don't stop me." Priss said firmly. Holding onto Mackie's suit's mechanical arm, She made her way to the pit.

            Sylia sighed, and then turned to the boomer. "New type, eh?" Her eyes narrowed. "All the same to me." She took a deep breath. "Let's go, Nene!" Taking the lead, she shot up in the air, and then bomber dived at the boomer, with her arm blade extended, she slashed at the boomer's left arm. It raised it's gatling gun and fired at her, she changed the direction of her jet burner, and moving from left to right, she landed and charged at the boomer's right side, while Nene, who hesitated for a second, raised her arm and fired her hand machine gun at the boomer's left.

            Sylia was at the boomer's right side in an instant, her blade flashed, but the boomer ducked, and she missed, something shot out from the boomer's back, and Sylia found her waist in a pincer of two strange arms with single claws on each. As she turned her head, she saw Nene ducked, and almost awkwardly rolled out the way of another one of the boomer's strange arm.

            "Yaaaa!" Nene screamed. "What's this? Get away!" Her machine gun blazed in the cold night. Not giving up on fighting, Sylia retracted her arm blade, and extended her explosion tube in her palms, and pressed firmly against the boomer's arms. 

Bang! 

She fell toward the ground, but she recovered in mid air, in time to see two of the boomer's arms fell. It stood up fully, and now she could see that it had 10 arms: two like normal human arms, 8 that came out from its back. These were more like tentacles. Now there were 6 left after Sylia blew two off.

"Watch out Sylia! I think this design is stolen from Reika's multi-legged tank!" Sylia looked up to see Linna landed right in front of her. Linna quickly added. "We have a big problem. I think they know who we really are."

            Sylia was about to say something, when a blue lighting flashed to her side. She turned to see Priss in her suit. "It doesn't matter if they know or not, right now we need to take out this bastard!" Priss yelled.

            "Can you fight?" Sylia said. She knew Priss couldn't see her concerned face.

            "I'll be fine, let's finish this monster." Priss put up her fists.

            "In that case," Sylia straightened herself fully. "Knight Sabers, action!"

            Despite being hurt, Priss got to the monster's side first, dodging its bullets; each bullet was centimeters away from the visor of her helmet. "Hyaa!" She kicked the boomer in the stomach; the force knocked the boomer backwards slightly, before it swung its claws at her head. She ducked, and opening her palms up, laser beams shot out and lanced toward the boomer's chest.

            "Grrrrr!" It growled, as the laser beams pierced its chest. It stumbled, but 4 of the 6 arms/tentacles shot out from its back and lashed at Priss. She jumped, but limped, and hopped over the first two, rolled out of the way of the 3rd, but the 4th one caught her and wrapped itself around her left thigh.

            "Ahhh!" She screamed, and putting up her arm, she shot a couple spikes from her rail gun directly into the boomer's eyes. Its head snapped back by the force of the spikes puncturing through. The boomer covered its face with the two human-like arms. Linna jumped over Nene's head, raising her arms, firing two laser beams into the boomer's back. 4 of the 6 arms blew up, and with a swing of her head, her two cutting ribbons slashed off the remaining two.

            "Go to hell, boomer!" Priss shouted, her right hand form into a fist, activating the knuckle bomber, as she gave her roundhouse hook directly to the boomer's head. With a loud explosion, the boomer lost the head, and was reeling backwards toward Nene.

            "Eh…EH?" Nene seemed to freeze for a second, before she gave the thing a hard shove, which made it falling toward Priss. She gave it a good sidekick in the groin. It flew toward Sylia, groaning in pain. Raising her right arm with the laser blade extended, with one left to right swing, she cut the boomer in half. The two halves fell to the ground, still writhing.

            Priss slowly walk toward the now disabled boomer. She raised her hand over its two pieces of body. Spikes shot out from her hand, and she nailed the thing to the ground. "Garbage…" She seethed under her breath, then collapsed and fell down.

            "Priss, are you ok?" Nene and Linna immediately ran to her, Sylia shook her head as if in marvel. Then she came over as well. "Priss, I did tell you not to fight this time, didn't I?"

            Taking off her helmet, Priss smiled. "You know I wouldn't miss it for the world."

            Sylia opened her visor, sighing loudly but looking obviously relieved. "Looks like you will be fine, but we'll take you to the hospital now, otherwise they may have to amputate that leg! I simply can't imagine you singing with one leg!"

            "Hey!" Priss protested.

            "Alright, alright, let's go." Sylia said. The 4 turned toward the mobile pit when a figure came out from the mobile pit's shadow.

            It was Leon.

            "What…what are you doing here?" Priss said with somewhat hoarse voice. "Where were you?"

            "Fuck it. I couldn't get here early." Leon looked like he wanted to kick himself. "Anyway, I do have one piece of good news. I think we've found where Miss Vision is being held." He nodded behind him. Kou stepped out from behind him.

            Linna spoke suddenly. "You…you guys are working together?"

            "I'll explain later. Let's get Miss Asagiri some medical attention first." Kou said quickly.

            Everybody muttered an agreement. All got into the mobile pit, Mackie drove the pit (it's a truck) toward the hospital direction. It turned the corner and was gone.

            The AD Police's siren could be heard in the distance…

* * * * * * * * * * * * 

Priss muttered something under her breath as she tried to sit up in the hospital room. She looked around the room. Sylia was chatting with a man in a white coat; Linna and Nene talked in a low voice, with Nene scrunching up her face and Linna chuckling; Leon and Kou were standing on either sides of the room, neither moved or talked.

One would not notice any difference between this room, and any other rooms in other hospitals, but everyone in this room knew that Sylia had specially arranged for this one.

            "Well, ordinarily there would be no need for secrecy here, but…" She gestured to the middle-aged doctor with somewhat balding head, large nose, think lips, and black rimmed, circular framed glasses. "Dr. Bryant here was a close friend of my father's…" She seemed to frown when she said 'father,' and then the left corner of her mouth barely moved up, but her face didn't look like smiling. Priss noticed but said nothing. Sylia continued: "So we can trust him."

            "Does he know who we…?" Nene said quickly.

            Sylia shook her head very slightly. She turned, and talked with Dr. Bryant for a moment, before the Doctor turned, and nodded to the group. He assured that Priss would recover soon, before leaving the room.

            Locking the door, Sylia turned to the group. "Dr Bryant made sure no one would disturb us for as long as we need." She cleared her throat, and turned to Leon. "Well, detective, can you explain your new formed partnership with Kou here?"

            Leon didn't seem to happy, he shrugged and said: "We're not really being partners, we're…"

            Nene giggled when he said 'partner.' Leon glared at her and said indignantly: "Hey! It's not like that!" 

            Kou simple stared at Nene with a slightly confused look.

            Nene stuck her tongue out, and then apologized.

            "Anyway," Leon continued with a resigned look. "I received report of a new type of boomer wrecking havoc downtown, and then finding out that my singing sweet heart was there…" He turned and winked at Priss, who turned and looked at the window. "Hmpf," She said. 

            "…So I tried to get there as soon as I could, but this time I had to deal some procedural crap, and then this guy showed up at the station, or rather, we picked him up for questioning earlier when we…" He paused, and smiled sarcastically. "It's more like I picked him up," He stared at Nene hard for a second. She seemed to stifle a giggle. "With Daley on another assignment, it wasn't easy to do the investigation on my own, fortunately, some of our men noticed this guy and some guys in black lurking around where Miss Vision disappeared, so I just approached him. The son of a…He almost decked me." Leon said with some distaste in his voice.

            Kou smiled, said: "Well, I had to be careful and suspicious about this. It isn't like this guy had 'AD Police' written on his face or something…"

            "He was on TV." Linna pointed out.

            Kou seemed to blush mildly. "True, but with Miss Reika missing, I had a tougher time to think straight, besides, just because he's a cop doesn't mean we, that is, the Hou Bang should trust him. We know how the justice system sometimes doesn't work…" His face darkened briefly before he continued: "At any rate, I tried to knock him out, but he was pretty good. Even fended off some of my guys, but we got him at the end…"

            Leon interjected loudly: "I decided to hear what they had to say." He smiled exaggeratedly. Priss smirked. "Hmm….?" She cocked an eyebrow. 

            Kou took a deep breath. "That's when both sides figured out that we could help each other, since the AD Police can't do anything officially." His brows furrowed further before he let out a sigh. "I don't necessarily want to work with cops, but in this case," He turned his head and looked at Leon. "In this case, I think I can trust him."

            "I've always figured that somehow Genom have more of a hand in our operations then I could ever find out, but owning us…" Leon spat. "Now that simply pisses me off."

            "It isn't like they don't own everything around here." Linna said grimly.

            "Not us." Priss said firmly. "These bastards don't own us."

            "Sitting around and being negative won't do us any good," Sylia spoke, and everyone turned to look at her. "In this particular case, I think there is a stake for all of us." She nodded to Kou. "We, that is the Knight Sabers are formally accepting your request. But we will do it our way, so please don't interfere." Her voice turned a little bit regal and perhaps arrogant. Priss decided._ It's just like her._ Sylia continued: "But we do welcome whatever information you could furnish us with. You said you know where Miss Vision is being held?" 

            "Excuse me, what do you mean, 'don't interfere'?" Leon said with surprised expression.

            "We're not staying out of this. This is our war with Genom." Kou said darkly.

            "Yes, but we work alone." Sylia stated firmly. "That's the best way for us to operate efficiently." 

            The air in the room thickened considerably, as everybody became quiet.

            "Guys, why are we arguing?" Nene said with a trouble expression on her face. "We have one enemy."

            "We're _not_ taking on Genom." Sylia said. She stood akimbo. 

            "But we are." Kou said, he turned to the door and started to leave. "Both of you are welcome to back out. We the Hou Bang will take care of them ourselves."

            "Well, whatever. I'm just going to have to rescue Miss Vision, be a hero, and close the investigation myself." Leon shrugged, and turned to the exit.

            "Leon…" Priss said sounding half whined, half resigned.

            Linna rushed to the door, and block the men's way. "Wait a minute, we don't have to act like this." She said urgently. "We _can_ work together, at least for the time being. For…for Reika's sake." Her voice lowered. "I don't want to lose a friend again." 

            Everyone was silent. Priss thought about her parents and old friends before she joined the Knight Sabers.

            "Very well, let's do this then." Sylia spoke up first. "We'll rescue Miss Vision, after that, you may do whatever you want with Genom." Sylia nodded to Kou. "And you can close your case, and deal with your superiors." She looked at Leon's direction.

            Priss gave Sylia an unpleasant look. She could tell Sylia was purposely ignoring her.

            "I agree," Kou said. "Here are the probable places where Miss Reika's being held…"

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * 

            "I said I'm fine already! This isn't the 20th century, you know!" Priss grumbled loudly as Linna tried to support her a little. "I'm pretty much all healed and ready to go!"

            "Well, lucky for you the glass didn't exactly penetrate all the way through your thigh." Linna said, while pulling back her arms. "Fine. Thank God for technology."

            "Let's go to Sylia's." Priss walked with a slight limp. 

            Linna couldn't help but marvel at how quickly this fast-tempered woman walking _ahead_ of her healed. _Well, she's a natural survivor._ "More like a wild beast then Bat man." She muttered.

            "What?" Priss turned and asked. She seemed to frown.

            "Nothing, let's go."

            The two arrived at Sylia's place. After being let in by Mackie, they stopped short of opening the door to Sylia's room when they heard an argument between she and Nene.

            "But why can't we take on Genom?" Nene's voice came.

            "They're too big for us to handle. Besides, they aren't necessarily all evil." Came Sylia's voice.

            "What? But look what they did to all these people, Irene, Reika, Sylvie and Anri, Priss' friends from her old days, and our guys from the force!"

            "Not Sylvie and Anri. Anyway, Genom make useful products for the world, creates jobs, and they did rebuild the whole city…"

            "That's why half of the city looks like a garbage dump!"

            Linna couldn't help but smile a little bit while imagining Nene's pout look, but her smile quickly turned to a grim one. Priss pushed open the door, and went in. She followed.

            "Nene's right. It's about time somebody did something about it." Priss said loudly. 

            "It's not that simple, Priss." Sylia waved a hand.

            "What, are you afraid of them?" Priss asked loudly.

            Sylia's lips pursed but she said nothing.

            "Something else bothers me here…" Linna's eyes narrowed slightly as she tried to recall something in her mind, something that Sylia talked about, something about the job offer from Genom... "…Yes, that's it!" She turned to Sylia. "Sylia, tell us about the Origin."

            Sylia stared at her but didn't speak.

            "Well?" Priss asked impatiently.

            "Yeah, tell us!" Nene chimed in.

            Sylia closed her eyes for a moment. "I suppose it was inevitable." She muttered. Sylia seemed to brace herself. "Are you aware how the boomers were created, exactly?"

            The women excluding Sylia stared at each other for a second, before Nene spoke up: "Well, your father…I mean Dr. Stingray came up with the idea of a revolutionary cyber droid technology, which is based on some human physiology, but with great enhancements, so that people won't have to participate in hard manual labor, or even regular manual labor. In effect, saving time and reduce, even eliminate the need for costly safety measures…"

            Sylia nodded and interrupted: "You didn't forget most of what the Genom corporation told people in public. But here's the question: who or what was the prototype boomer?"

            Nene blinked. "Who? What do you mean, who?"

            Priss shook her head, and shrugged. "I don't follow you."

            Sylia took a deep breath, and seemed to tense up for a moment. "The boomers are made based on humans, but it wasn't easy to transition from human structures to machine structures, so there had to be a prototype, a liaison between humans and boomers if you will." She paused, and continued: "This prototype in some ways was more advanced than today's boomers, because even though today's boomers are intelligent enough, and can carry out normal human functions just like humans most of the time, there are some elements missing, for instance, ambitions, arrogance, sadness, longing…"

            "You sound like you're describing Sylvie and Anri." Priss said with a painful look on her face.

            "And Largo." Linna added.

            "They're certainly more advanced than the boomers then the ones we usually encounter. Their battle functions has been modified and enhanced even more than the usual boomers." Sylia walked over to the table, and picked up her coffee. "Now, suppose the more advanced boomers like Sylvie's and Largo's is an extension, even realization of the prototypes potentials, and the prototype is still somewhere at large, except it wasn't as enhanced as the Super Boomers or Sexroids, but still capable to function as they do, what would happen if someone like Largo, or Genom gets to it?" She took a sip and frowned. The coffee was rather bitter.

            Priss winced when she heard the word boomer mentioned with Sylvie's name. She said quickly: "I thought we took out that cursed Largo and the black box before."

            "Largo is dead, as far as we know. But the Satellite coordination system can be rebuild." 

            "I see," Linna said. "But so what? If we get to it and destroy it like we did to Largo, then the problem is solved, right?" 

            Sylia simply looked at her. Linna seemed to shrink back a little. 

            Priss frowned. "I don't like to think about this much, but…if the prototype is more like Sylvie…" She held her head and fell into the sofa, looking deflated.

            "So we have a problem." Sylia stood akimbo with her gaze to the ground. "We can't simply exterminate the prototype, should it turn out to be more human then boomer, and since it doesn't function like Largo, we probably shouldn't even bother with it. On the other hand, if Genom gets to it…"

            The room was deathly silent.

            "Um, I have a question?" Nene spoke up suddenly. "What does all this have to do with our current situation?"

            Sylia spoke slowly: "We don't want to confront Genom." She paused. "And I think I know what…or rather who the prototype is."

            Priss looked up sharply at her. 

Nene was agape. 

Linna asked hurriedly: "Who?"

Sylia simply looked at the ground. Her arms are still crossed in front of her chest.

            The air in the room was so thick that Sylia's laser blade couldn't cut it.

            Linna seemed to tense up considerably. "Sylia, who did Dr. Stingray, or rather, your father use as the blueprint for the prototype?"

            Sylia was silent.

            Linna asked urgently in a higher pitched voice: "Who did he use as a prototype?" Her arms spread out to the sides.

            The three stared at Sylia. 

            Nene's lower jaw slowly dropped lower than before. 

Priss grabbed Sylia's arms. "You…you…"

"Please let go, Priss." Sylia said in a low voice.

"But…but…" Linna's words came stuttered. 

"I've always suspected something. I mean, there are some things about me that I found different from others, but I've always just put them out of my mind." Sylia said in a low voice. "I'm not too sure, but with all these things happened lately, and our confrontation with Largo, I've began to suspect that perhaps I'm the Origin…"

Priss let go of Sylia's arms and fell back into the sofa. "I don't understand this." She jumped out of her seat. "Why the hell didn't you tell us?"

"Because I wasn't sure!" Sylia snapped. She threw her hands up. "Largo made a mind contact with me right after we dealt with the D.D., that made me more suspicious than before, but I still don't have any proof. Now Genom's coming after us, and our true identities are exposed, I'm not too sure about going against them…"

"This isn't like you at all, Sylia!" Linna exclaimed.

Sylia looked gloomy. "I've never wanted to go against them in the first place. It isn't just 'they're bad', and 'we're good'." She paused, and looked up at the ceiling. "But now I'm even more hesitant about going up against them. After all, it isn't just for my sake."

"I can't deal with this." Priss said and then turned, and hurried out of the door before anyone could stop her. A minute or two later the three women in the room could hear a loud roar of a motorcycle engine, and the screech of tire scrapping against the ground. The sound of Priss' bike faded into the distance quickly.

Silence.

Linna spoke up first. "I'm sorry Sylia, but right now I need to go home and think." She walked to the door; her hand was on the doorknob. "No matter what, Genom's probably coming after everyone of us. And maybe people there already knows who you truly are." She left without closing the door.

Nene came up and held Sylia's right arm for a moment. She was unusually quiet. "Um…I'll see you later, ok?" With that she quickly left the room.

Sylia stood along in the middle of the room. She lifted her right hand to the ceiling light and examined it for a long time, before she went into the databanks room and the automatic door slid shut behind her.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

            "Tell me about your dealings with Largo." Linna asked somewhat sharply then she intended.

            "We had some contact with a certain man behind a mask." Kou said succinctly. 

            "Mask?" Linna frowned.

            "Yeah. It didn't work out." Kou paused while sipping on some tea. "He wanted us to supply some of our power cells that was used for the Genki all terrain combat vehicle, and the compositions for its armor, in exchange he would give us the Quincy's daily schedule for a certain month. We thought it was a rather ludicrous offer." He shrugged. "we weren't sure if the supposedly dead super boomer was behind that man, and our background check on him was fruitless, so we rejected his offer." He seemed frown. "I think this guy was more like an arms merchant."

            "I see." Linna shook her head. "Didn't you guys know that Largo was very dangerous?"

            "We had to try anyway we can to get to Quincy." 

            Linna leaned back in her chair. _What is Sylia doing now?_ She shook her head, then said: "With Largo, if it really was him, there is a possibility for him to hack into Genom's mainframe, I mean super computer, and pull out certain schedules of the VIPs, but probably not Quincy's. I'm thinking his secretary Madigan probably memorizes them in her mind."

            Kou seemed thoughtful. "In that case, if we can somehow abduct this woman, and then put her under our deep psycho-scanner…"

            "Kou," Linna said with a warning tone. "That's wrong and you know it. Anyway, _we_ won't do that."

            "Easy for you to say," Kou smiled coldly. "Miss Reika probably went through _their_ scanner. It's not a pleasant experience." His face twisted as if he was in pain, but he quickly recovered.

            "I'm sorry, Kou." Linna said in a soften voice. "We're all trying hard and we'll rescue her, I promise."

            "When?" Kou stared at her coldly. "It's been 3 days and you haven't moved yet."

            Linna tried to hide her grimace. _It was supposed to be tonight, but after last night…_ "Tomorrow night."

            "If we had more fire power, we wouldn't need you at all." Kou said suddenly with a hint of frustration in his voice. He stood up. "I've already paid for the meal. Enjoy yourself." He turned and walked a few steps. "I'll be waiting at the warehouse near the water front, in district 7."

            _Now how am I going to get everyone together?_ "I understand." Linna tried very hard to hide her grimace.

            Kou nodded and left. Linna held her forehead.

            The steak dinner was turning cold.

            Linna stared at the meal, then she gazed outside.

            The nighttime at Mega Tokyo was an almost dreamy sight whenever she looks through the glass of a restaurant, or hotel room. From where she sat, only the ever-changing red, green, yellow, blue, and different colors of the neon lights were visible in the otherwise darkly veiled city. The floating billboard flied by while barking out for the nth time about new opportunities in the newly built frontier space colonies. She leaned back in her seat, and closed her eyes for a moment. Then there were the smelly street corners, the dirty alleyways, the abandoned buildings once held promise for a brighter future and jobs to provide for the families with distant dreams now housed the homeless. _Not that anyone cares. _She thought, then her lips curled. _Not the police, not the media, and not Genom._

            "Perhaps we're over doing it. There isn't any more…" Linna lowered her head, and looked at her steak again.

            It had already turned cold, and all the juice had already come out of it. She mechanically lifted up her knife with her right hand, stabbed the meat with the fork in her left hand, and began to cut through it.

            The neon lights still glowed and flashed outside, as a couple walked by holding hands and laughed out a loud.

            Irene's face and her engagement ring flashed by in Linna Yamazaki's mind, as she looked up all of a sudden. She took a deep breath. "That wasn't like me, was it?" She mused out a loud. Seeing that no one had noticed her words, she quickly finished her meal, paid for it, and went outside. The night was not as cold as she thought before. She quickly got into her car, started it and found it being responsive. She smiled with delight, and quickly drove away.


	3. Live Wire

BGC Episode 11: Live Wire

            Priss barely got out of the way of the boomer's large blade, before she used her jet to fly up quickly avoiding a tentacle that shot out from the monster's right hand. The boomer shot more tentacles at her, as it tried to wrap her in its deadly web. She made a face, and air flipped out of the way. She back flipped, and then straightening her legs with the back leg thrusters output to maximum, she used her momentum to shoot herself toward the boomer; her knuckles pointing straight at the boomer's head. They connected with the huge blue giant's skull.

            BOOM!

            Priss blew the monster's head off, and quickly jumped off the trunk of the boomer, it made a grab at her, but she moved her body left, then right, then ducked, and knelt on the ground before she straightened herself up, and easily side-stepping from the boomer's desperate lunge. It fell onto the ground. But just before she was going to finish it off with her laser cannon, something warned her in the back of her mind, and she quickly ran forward. 

            Another boomer had made a grab at her head. 

            Priss quickly turned around, and saw 4 boomers slowly walking toward her. She bit her lower lip for a second, before rushing into the alleyway. Finding her motoroid (bike), she jumped on the bike, and kicked the engine to life.

            Behind her, the jets on the boomers' legs and back came alive; orange-crimson flames shot out and lit the night air. They came at her just as her bike's engine roared into action, and her whole being lunged forward with the screaming machine that she rode on. 

            "Damn," she muttered. "I wish Sylia and the rest of them were here."

            She rode through the narrow lanes between houses, running over trashcans, debris, dirty clothes, and other things. The boomer smashed through the corners and followed close behind her.

            Clank!

            Priss quickly glanced over her shoulder. _Just two? What happened to the other two?_

            All of the sudden, she saw a couple of projectiles flying toward her from both sides. There was no time to think, she cranked up the engine, and lifted the front wheel…

            KABOOM!

            She felt the heat soaking into her back briefly, as the debris from the explosion scattered in the air around her. She quickly looked to her left and right; one boomer on the roof from each side was running somewhat behind her position.

            "Shit!" Priss shouted when all of the sudden she saw the darkish blue water in front of her.

            She didn't realize that she was near the sea.

            She quickly yanked the bike toward her right, as the wheels protested with a loud screech, and changed their direction barely before the bike could fall into the sea.

            From where Priss was looking, the sea looked like an abyss. She had no time to ponder, however, as the 4 boomers split into two parties, 2 chased her from behind, and the other 2 flew parallel to her on both sides, and then two boomers on her sides tried to slash her with their claws, which she ducked, and then she kicked at the boomer at her left before it got too close for her comfort. It growled, and backed off a little bit. Priss' kick had taken out another one before the one she just took out near the waterfront.

            "Missed," Priss muttered. She quickly raised her right hand, and straight punched at the boomer at her right while trying hard not to tilt the bike toward it. It flew up.

            _This isn't working. All right then._ Priss accelerated to 230 km/h; that threw the boomers off for a few seconds. She pressed the button, and the bike responded to her command by standing and opening itself to cover and combine with her hard suit. But because she rode so fast, the force of the suit changing and clinging to her hard suit on her body almost knocked the wind out of her.

            "Oompf!" Priss exhaled involuntarily. Quickly, she used the newly armored hands to hold the buster rifle tight.

            She stopped, and turned around. The four boomers stopped their flights, and landed on the ground. They formed a line, and slowly advanced toward her.

            Priss took a deep breath. _Although my motor slave is upgraded, so are these bastards._ "Come and get some, ya fuckers!" She aimed the powered rifle at them.

            All four boomers stopped cold in their tracks and raised their cannons and locked on her.

            Priss's eyes narrowed. Her finger was on the trigger. 

* * * * * * * * * * * * 

            Linna sat in Sylia's living room.

            "So, yeah, that's my decision." She took a deep breath. "We're still friends, and I'll fight with you."

            "That was easy," Sylia said with a warm smile. Then her face turned a little bleak. "Considering the circumstances, that's brave of you." She closed her eyes as she sat with her arms on her sides.

            "No Sylia. I think under the circumstance this is my best option." Linna tried to smile, but frowned instead. "I know I can trust you. You won't become Largo." She almost whispered: "Right…?"

            Sylia shook her head. "Don't worry about it."

            Beep! Beep!

            Sylia quickly got in front of the communicator, and flipped the switch on, Nene's face filled the screen. "What's up?"

            "Boomers sighted at the waterfront in district 7, and…" Nene seemed to wince. "Priss is fighting them by herself."

            "What?" Linna raised her voice. "She is?"

            Sylia quickly called Mackie, got a confirmation, and then she turned to Linna. "Priss took her suit and motoroid. She's gone to rescue Vision herself."

            "But why?" Linna asked. "They're not best friends. I actually wanted to go myself, but…"

            "You came to me first. That's a good idea." Sylia quickly took off her shirt. "I think she's trying to show us and Genom that she could do this by herself." She gestured to Linna, and then to Nene, who was still on screen. "Let's go get changed. Nene, we'll meet you at 68th Street near the waterfront." She rushed out of her room, followed by Linna.

* * * * * * * * * *

            Priss tried to relax her body as much as she could before taking a deep breath. The salty air filtering into her helmet made her nose tingle. She ignored the sensation, and gripped the buster rifle tighter. 

            The four boomers had their cannons aimed straight at her. Their aims never wavered.

            Priss chose to let out her breath and screamed: "Take this you mechanical freaks!" 

            A thick beam of light shot out from the nuzzle, and the boomers seemed to stop for a second, as the laser beam lit up a huge area around them. 

            "God damn!" one of the boomer swore, as it tried to get out of the way of the huge laser beam, but it was too late for him and the boomer on his right.

            Grrrrr! Both boomers in the middle growled in agony as the huge beam enveloped around them, melting and annihilating them in the process. The beam shot through and around them, and continued to race forward, and disappeared into the distant air behind where they used to stand.

            The particle of the buster rifle slowly dissipated. Priss shouted with joy: "Awesome! Now that's what I'm talking about." She immediately took aim at the remaining boomers, but found that they had scattered to the right and left of her, and were coming from either side. 

            A quick second was all she needed before she tossed the rifle forward, with her jet blazing in the cold air. The motor slave/hard suit combination she was wearing took her backwards with explosive speed, and two anti-personnel missiles shot out at the boomers with deadly speed.

            Both boomer stopped suddenly, and held their huge cannon arm up.

            BOOM! 

            The force of the explosion knocked the boomers backwards, but as Priss watched intently, they remained standing after the smoke cleared.

            "Shit!" Priss cursed, and diving forward for the buster rifle, she quickly grabbed it. With a quick spin she had one knee on the ground, and she took aim at the boomer on the right before it could even move.

            Click, click, click.

            The buster rifle didn't respond.

            "What…what the hell?" Priss gasped. She quickly looked up, only to see the back of the huge cannon arm of a boomer coming right at her face. 

Smack!

            "Ah!" Priss screamed as she was knocked backwards. She pressed her jet hurriedly before she could fall into the sea. She opened up the missile ports again, and more missiles shot out, but the boomers again blocked with their cannon arms, and the missiles had no effect.

            The two boomers slowly advanced toward Priss, who took a few steps back. She quickly looked back, and saw the dark blue water.

            "Damn it!" she yelled, and then popping out of the motorroid armor, she raised her fists. "Come on, ya sons of bitches!"

            "Tuck 'n' roll!" came a loud sound behind her right after she heard a loud splashing sound. She obeyed immediately, right before two sharp tipped missiles flew past her. As she watched, the boomers tried to fly up and to their respective right and left, but it was too late. 

            "Oh sh…" Priss immediately jumped into the water, and rolled up while covering her head.

            KAABOOOOMMMM!!!

            Priss could feel a huge heat wave coursing through her suit, accompanying the tremendous shaking that she felt, even in the icy sea water. Then huge chucks of debris fell into the water, some hitting her. The force of the debris made her cover up her head a moment longer.

            Right after all the ruckus ended, Priss shot through the water, and surfaced. With her head in the clear, she saw that a huge crater occupied where she and the boomers were.

            "Fuckin' cool…" she said with a hoarse voice. Then she quickly turned to see Sylia with a huge cannon in her hands, hovering somewhere behind her above the water. "Hey! Sylia! You could've blown my head off with that one!" she shouted.

            Sylia seemed to shrug. "Sorry Priss, but I believe I did tell you to duck."

            "Yeah, but look at the size of this hole! If I hadn't jumped my body could've been blown to bits!" Priss protested. She lit up her jet, and jumped out from the water's surface onto the center of the crater. The seawater was filling it up.

            "I did upgrade the hard suits, didn't I?" Sylia waved. "Relax already."

            Priss made a face. She turned to see Linna and Nene standing not too far off on land.

            Both of them ran up to her, and Sylia flew onto the land as well.

            The four stood together.

            Priss took a deep breath and turned to look at Sylia. "Look, I…"

            "I understand, Priss," Sylia said quietly. "It wasn't easy on any of you."

            The left corner of Priss' mouth moved up. She turned to look at the ocean.

            Sylia turned her gaze to the other two. "How about you guys? Want to work together again?"

            All four had their visors up.

            Linna sighed. "Sylia, I've never liked or disliked boomers that much until last time Irene…" She shook her head. "Anyway, whatever Dr. Stingray did wasn't your fault. It…It's Genom who uses boomers for evil." She held out her hand. Sylia took it.

            Nene smiled. "Let me help too, Sylia." She put her hand on top of Sylia's

            "Ok! Howzabout we get going here? Vision can't save herself, you know." Priss put her hand on the top of the other three's. "We can talk about whatever comes next later."

            "Let's go then, I think Miss Vision is being held in the research center," Sylia said.

            "What? Not around here?" Linna said in surprise. "Then what were you doing here, Priss?"

            "Eh? I was just tracking a couple of regular boomers and the military types, when they discovered me." Priss shrugged. "Come on! Let's go." 

            The four left quickly. 

Meanwhile, the huge doors of the warehouse behind them opened up, and a truck with the words "Live Crab" on it side pulled out of the warehouse, and stopped for a moment, before going in the direction where the Knight Sabers went.

            "It's our information," Kou murmured in the driver's seat. "We'll take out the Genom research center and burn their secrets to the ground.

            The truck disappeared into the night.

 * * * * * * * * * *

            The Genom research center stood near the sea. Even though it was 2:30 in the morning, where in the out skirts of the area most of the lights were out, the lights in the center were brightly lit. 

            Two guards, each about 7 feet tall, stood grimly in front of the large sliding doors. As Nene scoped with her sensors she swallowed and made a face. "Sylia, these two are boomers, just as you thought, but here's the kicker: Laser beams, gatling guns, heat sensors, motion detection system all around the front gate, and the first floor, all the way to the elevator door." She turned to look at Sylia, and then glanced at Priss with her tongue stuck out. Priss glared at her for a second before looking back at the front gate. "So busting in from the front door isn't going to work very well."

            Sylia smiled. "That wasn't my intention anyway." She pointed to the side of the building. "I assume there are sensors and anti-personnel systems on the side as well?"

            "They're all over the building, I'm afraid." Nene frowned briefly. "Wait…um..." She paused. "There aren't many sensors underground, as far as I can tell, with all the electromagnetic interference generated by whatever they're doing in there."

            Sylia nodded. "I thought so, go look around for a vent or cover of some kind on the ground, when you find it use our communication frequency to alert the rest." 

            The Knight Sabers scattered, after Nene murmured something about 'like a military installation.'

            "Found it!" Nene said, and so everyone gathered around her.

            They made their entrance underground.

* * * * * * * * * 

            "I'm not sure which room she will be in," Nene said. "But from analyzing the electromagnetic signals that the special brain scanner gives off…" She pointed at a room down the hallway on the left. "Probably that one."

            "Right, and you weren't sure," Priss said dryly.

            "Hey, I'm just doing my job here," Nene whined.

            She had disabled the cameras, replaced the view with an empty hallway, and took out a few guards. "Oh the nerve you have, Priss! You stood by and did nothing, while I had to take care of these guys!"

            Priss shrugged. "You moved in like a pro, and I didn't have time to react!" She leaned against the wall. "You're a natural!"

            Nene frowned. "I want to thank you for that comment, but I'm not sure if you're just playing with me here."

            "Cut the chatter and let's go," Sylia warned. To which both Blue Saber and Pink Saber said: "Yes, Miss Sylia." 

            They got to the door and Nene did a sensor sweep. "6 people. One lying down on a bed." 

            "No other way in?" Sylia asked.

            Nene shook her head.

            "Well, that's fine," Sylia said, then she turned to Priss: "Do your thing."

            "About time!" Priss exclaimed. She kicked the door in, and charged right after. "Freeze!" She screamed with her gauntlet hand up, her laser cannon pointing at the men in white coats, who stared back in confusion, some in horror. A woman was lying on the only bed in the room, with a strange helmet attached to her head. She was wearing a green garb and barefoot. On screen, a strange scene was playing: a woman rushed into a room, then knelt beside a dead girl lying in her blood.

            "Reika!" Linna screamed suddenly. She had been quiet till now. The woman didn't move. Linna turned to the men: "What the hell did you assholes do to her?" Her voice was shaking.

            After a few kicks to the groin, and punches to the face, the Knight Sabers found out from the men in lab coats that Reika was relatively unharmed. The Sabers let out a few sighs of relief.

            "Just…just give her some painkillers later…for…for the headache…we…we would…never hurt the patient…" the doctor said while holding his stomach, as he curled over. Priss's kick seemed to have done its worst. He passed out.

            "Whatever." Priss put Reika on her shoulders. "Is that it? Let's go then."

            The Knight Sabers all nodded in agreement, just when they were about to move toward the door…

            "YOU WILL NOT BE LEAVING HERE ANYTIME SOON!"

            "What? Who is this?" Priss looked around and said. All the Sabers immediately went on high alert.

            The monitor had been blank after Priss picked up Vision from the bed, after taking off the strange headset from her head, but now it fizzled, and an image of sharp eyes under heavily furrowed brows appeared. 

            Sylia's eyes narrowed. "Quincy Rosencroitz," she said softly.

            The old man's voice boomed over the speaker. "You will not leave here today alive, not after seeing my secrets. Neither you nor Chang's people will leave here alive…"

            Sylia frowned. Priss shouted: "The…the Hou Bang's here?"

            "These fools apparently followed you here." Quincy continued: "Do you think you can pass by our security so easily? Ha! I let you in! We have no use for Chang's daughter any more, you may take her if you wish…to hell!"

            "Nice lines," Nene muttered.

            "Shh!" Linna said.

            Sylia looked around - all the exits had been blocked off by what looked like thick walls.

            "Bastard!" Priss yelled, and handing Reika to Linna, she charged toward the door, swinging her fist, activating her knuckle bomber.

            Bang! Kaboom! 

            The door didn't budge. Priss couldn't even make a dent in it.

            "Try with all your might, Miss Asagiri! The next time when the door does open, your demise will come! As for Miss Stingray…" Quincy's eyes narrowed dangerously. "You would make an interesting specimen."

            Sylia felt her body shake with anger she never felt before. She forced herself to calm down. "I won't be much use to you, I'm afraid. I'm a human, or at least I'm closer to a human then a boomer," she said coldly.

            "No matter…" Quincy said darkly. "Just studying your brain will give me valuable information that I can't find anywhere else…" He paused with a smirk. "Enjoy your last moments together, Knight Sabers, for it will not last…"

            Priss shot a few spikes from the rail gun in her hand at the screen. It exploded with sparks coming out of the hole in the middle of it. 

            Everybody was silent.

            "We need to get out of here." Sylia said quickly. "Look for weaknesses in the walls, ceilings, corners. I don't intend to stay around and find out what's coming next."

            A quick search by the Sabers revealed nothing.

* * * * * * * * * * *

            Kou had silently congratulated himself when he decided to ditch the truck and follow the Knight Sabers into the sewage system of the research center. But he took a different route than the Sabers because he didn't want them to discover him. 

            Now, he wished he had followed them all the way.

            "Where the hell am I?" Kou muttered under his breath as he looked around. 

            Every door was the same as the other ones.

            "Kou!" static came through his communicator. "We're…under…" Kou spoke into the communicator: "Shin! Come in, Shin! What is it?"

            "We…can't hear y…under…attack…boomers, large military boomers…heavy firepower…we can't…" The static drowned out the voice. 

            "Shin? What's going on? Shin? Shin!" Kou yelled into the communicator. He didn't care if anyone had heard him. In fact, he wished someone had. He looked around almost eagerly for signs of people, but no one came.

            "Alright, that's it." He pulled out his gun, and walking toward the door on his right, he ducked to the right first, putting his ear on the door.

            He didn't hear anything. Kou took a deep breath; he stood facing the door, took aim, and shot the opening mechanism. The door slid open quietly.

            He froze. _Boomers?_

            Kou looked down, and realized that he was standing over a balcony. Down in the pit area, there were many cylindrical tanks, filled with bluish/greenish fluid, with boomers immersed in them. Some tanks contained a whole body, some had only a head, some almost the whole body save legs, and some tanks only had brain-like organs.       

            He scowled at the sight of the creatures from above. Still holding the gun in his hand, he started to walk toward the other end of the balcony.

            "WELCOME! FOOL! DO YOU LIKE MY PROPERTIES?"

            Kou didn't even flinch. He immediately turned and aimed at the source of the sound. He wasn't surprised when he saw the old man's face on a large screen and the voice came out of two speakers. He figured that there wasn't anyone around but him. 

"Quincy." Kou spat. "It's a shame that you're not here, or…"

            "Or what?" Quincy's voice boomed over the speakers, as he smirked on the screen. "Are you going to try to harm me with such pathetic force?" 

            His face on screen was replaced with a battle between the Genki walking tank, and 4 giant boomers. The Genki was barely holding its own against the onslaught of the four boomers.

            _Damn! We upgraded our weaponry!_ Kou couldn't help but show his frustration, even though he quickly hid it.

            Quincy apparently wasn't fooled. "Yes, that's the look I like to see on my enemy's face! Anger, frustration, despair! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!" He paused, and seemed to be relishing Kou's reaction. Quincy seemed to lean back. "Well, no matter, I can't let you walk out of here seeing our secrets, anyway. But don't worry, soon you'll join your friends outside, and inside as well…I'm already taking care of the Knight Sabers and Chang's daughter…"

            "You leave her out of this!" Kou couldn't keep a stoic face any longer. "Reika…Miss Reika has nothing to do with it! You deal only with me!" He swung his gun at the screen, to which Quincy laughed "Eh? Have I touched a nerve? How amusing! A common foot soldier interested in his mistress! Well, it really doesn't concern me. You will be seeing her soon…IN HELL!" Quincy laughed maniacally, as his face disappeared from the large screen. At the same time the tanks down below stirred, as Kou watched intensely, the tanks with completed boomers in them started to crack.

            "Shit," Kou muttered. He started to run toward the other end. He got to the door; found it locked, shot the locking mechanism, and then without waiting for it to open by itself, he tried to pry it open. He could hear the sound of loud footsteps closing in on him.

            _Damn! Come on, come on!_ Kou thought frantically as the door slowly crept leftward…

* * * * * * * * * * *

            The pounding on the door was getting louder and louder, as the Knight Sabers looked at each other with some uneasiness. 

            Nene was secretly cursing Genom, and Quincy in general. _Damn that old fart! Why did he have to talk with such a smug grin on his face!_ "I say, Sylia…"

            "Be quiet a moment, Nene, and let me think." Sylia interrupted her rather quickly and Nene could feel a strong sense of unpleasantness coming from her. "Oh sure…try to think with that noise…" Nene mumbled, and quickly turned away from Sylia's direction, not wanting to get another scolding look.

            Sylia didn't seem to notice.

            "How about that missile launcher?" Priss asked impatiently. "I was wondering why haven't you used it yet." She paused, and looked at Linna's direction. "Some of us could cover Vision while you fire that."

            "I only had two missiles," Sylia answered succinctly.

            "What?" Priss said loudly. "_Two?_"

            "We weren't supposed to get into a heavy firefight here." Sylia paused, and looked at the door. "Stealth, remember?"

            Priss snapped at her. "Well, that obviously didn't work, and it ain't gonna work now." She raised her gauntlet hand at the door. "Whatever it is that's knocking on the door and driving me nuts will come in anytime soon, but I'm not letting that thing get the upper hand." She seemed to tense up. "I'll surprise it by blasting open the door first."

            "What about calling our motor slaves in here right now?" Nene felt that she had to speak up. Her voice quivered.

            "Our signals can't reach them!" Linna snapped at her suddenly. "God, use your brain!"

            "But…but…" Nene knew her face had turned red under her helmet.

            Linna looked away for a second. "I'm sorry," she mumbled.

            Nene took a long and deep breath. She walked up to her friend, who was holding Vision in her arms. "Hey, Linna…uh…she will be alright. We…we will get her out of here…"

            "I know," Linna looked down at the still unconscious woman in her arms. "I've been…uneasy lately."

            "Whatever it is, it's coming now." Priss' voice sounded strained."

            "Everyone get ready." Sylia said quickly. She raised her right arm. "I'll take the point, Priss and Nene, be my wings. Linna, you take Vision and take cover under the console."

            Linna looked up suddenly. "Sylia, I'll fight…"

            "No, you protect Miss Vision…Reika." Sylia's voice was firm. "That's what we're paid to do. We _promised_." She turned around, opening her visor for a brief moment, and smiled at Linna.

            Nene observed and couldn't help but smile. "Sylia, you're so cool!"

            Sylia seemed to blush before she put her visor back in place. "Don't flatter me, and prepare yourself!" She raised her voice and turned to the door.

            The door was torn and fell to the ground with a loud crash.

            "What the fuck?" Priss cursed loudly. "But…they are…"

            Four lean but mean and tall boomers with shiny and slick armor plating stood in front of them, each brandishing some sort of beam weapon. Nene frowned. Some of their bodily markings and design looked vaguely like the hyper boomers that Largo employed, but these ones were not thick and heavily built like them. They looked leaner, faster, and more deadly. Nene was reminded of Cheetahs and other predatory cats. Then she gazed at Priss, and Sylia's hard suits.

            "Nice design," Sylia said coldly. "Since when did Genom build _petit_ sized hyper boomers?"

            "Nice design on your part, my dear Miss Stingray," the light blue colored boomer in the middle said with an oddly calm and soft voice. "After analyzing Largo's hyper boomers, Chang's all-terrain walking tank, and whatever data we got on you, we decided to make a special type of boomer…" Her voice got softer and quieter. "Just for dealing with you."

            "What the!" Nene yelled indignantly. "You're a boomer! You can't have a nicer body than actual people!" She pointed at the lead boomer's body, which looked as if it was covered with smooth and flowing liquid metal. "That's not right!"

            The boomer spoke coldly: "Who said I was a boomer?" She gestured to the three who stood silently behind her. "These are the advanced assassins made in female shapes, but not I." She pointed at Sylia. "Our design is vastly superior to yours!"

            Sylia's voice seemed to grow colder. "I didn't think Quincy would approve of this, Miss Madigan."

            "What?" The other three Sabers stared at Sylia for a brief second, before setting their eyes on the lead boomer.

            "Very good, Sylia Stingray." Madigan clicked a button on the handle of her beam saber, and the light leaped into a curved sword, shaped like a Katana. She pulled the sword to her left side with both hands, with the tip pointing at Sylia, while pushing her feet apart, right foot forward, and left in the back. Her knees were slightly bent. "The chairman doesn't have to know, because you will die before me today." She pulled her body backwards slightly, and her legs acted like compressed springs, as her knees bent a little further. The tip of her beam Katana blade was pointing at Sylia.

The 3 boomers behind her readied their weapons: the red one's finger nails grew into beam claws, as her feet spread apart horizontally; the darker blue one lifted her hands, holding shorter beam swords. The index fingers and thumbs gripped the pummel end, with the pummels pointing toward herself, and the tips toward Priss; her back (left) hand next to her chin, and her right forearm across her stomach, right under her belly button, as she turned her belly to the side. Her right foot pointed forward, and left foot was pointing just off to the side. The dark green one whipped with her left hand, and a beam whip jumped out of existence, as she turned her body a little bit to the side. She was now facing toward Linna, with her left foot forward. 

            All four Sabers took a deep breath. Linna gently put down Reika under the console, and the Sabers spread out to face their enemies: Sylia's beam blade extended as she raised her arms up, blade arm in front. Priss stood like a boxer, with her heels slightly raised. She was ready to pounce. Linna raised her right hand to her face. She turned her face somewhat to her right, while gazing at the dark green boomer. Nene looked about her. With some hesitance, she pulled her elbows to closer to her ribs, and spread her feet apart. 

Madigan and the 3 female boomers formed a row, as did the Knight Sabers.

            The two sides stood wordlessly. 

* * * * * * * * * * * 

            Kou felt like cursing his luck. But then again, he felt like thanking it.

            The door opened just enough for him to quickly squeeze through the opening, and once outside, he pulled as hard as he could on the door to close it, and then he ran as fast as he could. He heard a loud metal banging sound behind him, which made him run faster.

            He knew that door wasn't going to hold.

            He tried not to run aimlessly, but there weren't any markings of identification on any of the doors. He thought about reaching for his communicator, but decided against it. _I'm sure they can track it somehow. Anyway, Shin and the rest of them can't even help themselves against these boomers._ He gritted his teeth. "Should've never underestimated him. That old fox." Quincy's face appeared in his mind. _Well, at least we got his attention so that he's dealing with us more seriously._ Kou grinned bitterly with some satisfaction rising in his heart.

            "Is that…?" He turned and saw an elevator. He quickly ran toward it. Something told him to press for B-3. He was at B-5. The door opened, and he went in. A few seconds after the elevator moved, he heard a large boom below him.

            Kou cursed his luck silently.

            The elevator slowed down to a sudden halt, and the jolt almost send Kou falling forward. He looked up at the floor display. It changed between B-4 and B-3.

            Something's grabbed the elevator cabin from under the floor.

            Kou gripped his gun tightly. 

It was time for him to make a move.


	4. Lonely Angel

BGC Episode 12: Lonely Angel

            The Knight Sabers stood across from the assassin boomers led by Madigan.

            "Get ready, Knight Sabers." Madigan said smugly. "Time for you to die!" She charged toward Sylia, and other boomers either rushed or flew toward the Knight Sabers. 

            Sylia braced herself, her blade arm cocked back slightly. "Knight Sabers, action!" The Sabers dispersed and went after their respective opponents: Sylia held her ground as Madigan ran toward at her with the tip of her beam Katana. Priss bum rushed the dark blue boomer with two short beam swords. The boomer was fighting back with her blades swinging. Linna snapped her head, and the ribbons became sharp blades slicing at the boomer with the beam wire, which it slung, and the beam wire/whip became a lance, the sharp end racing toward Linna. Nene yelled: "Come on!" as the boomer pounced like a tiger at her with its sharp claws. 

            "I'll finish you with one blow!" Madigan yelled. She was charging like an Olympic athlete with a high jump stick, except she held her sword more like a spear, with the tip closing in on Sylia.

            Sylia loosened up her body as much as she could, her eyes locked on her enemy like an eagle ready to snatch its prey. She raised her blade arm…

            "What?" Sylia uttered as the figure of Madigan disappeared into thin air for a brief second, before reappearing right in front of her. Madigan grunted while thrusting her sword toward Sylia's neck. The tip of the blade was merely centimeters away from its intended mark. Right before the beam Katana could pierce her throat, Sylia sidestepped blazingly with the help of her jets in her backpack, and swinging her blade arm up.

            Dzzzz…dzzzzz. The beam blades crossed briefly as she barely got out of the way, but her blade repelled Madigan's blade. Sylia didn't stop to think as she raised her other arm, and opened fire at Madigan. Madigan made a frustrated noise, as she moved. Suddenly it seemed as if Madigan faded into the background, but only for a millisecond before she appeared again, this time at Sylia's right. Sylia could feel the heat of the beam Katana near her right shoulder, as Madigan swung her blade.

            Sylia had to quickly side step again with the help of her jet. Keeping her balance, she spun and turned to face her enemy. This time, her blade was ready, and she left hooked with the blade on her arm. It missed Madigan completely, as she disappeared again for a quick second. Something warned Sylia in her mind, and she desperately turned to track her enemy, but Madigan's blade has made its cut, and Sylia bit her lower lip, not letting a scream out. She could feel a slanted path of searing pain from the top left of her back down to the bottom right. She completed her spin and faced Madigan while jumping back as far as she could.

            "Not so tough now, are you Sylia Stingray?" Madigan said in an icy tone as she held her sword like a batter ready to swing. Her stance looked firm.

            Sylia mentally checked her wound, and the computer built in the suit calculated the damage on the hard suit. "Interesting." She muttered. "I didn't know Genom had invented a cloaking device."

            "Ha! We have no need for that!" Madigan said haughtily. "What you saw were the left over image of my bodily movement. In other words, I'm so fast that you or your suit couldn't track me at all, except the image before I moved."

            Sylia narrowed her eyes. _This is going to be really tough…_

            On the other side of the room, Priss was having her own troubles with the dark blue boomer with twin short beam swords.

            "What the! Stay still so I could nail you to the wall!" She shouted in frustration. The boomer moved from side to side as Priss was having a tough time tracking its movement, it would race up to Priss with its blade tips coming at Priss from two different directions, to which Priss had to block with both arms, and then it would retreat and suddenly, it would come at a different angle, such as from way below, and Priss would have to back flip or side step completely, leaving her with no chance to counter attack. When Priss did get her swings in, she had no chance to follow up because the boomer had already ran up the wall, or climbed up to the ceiling.

            "Damn, it's fast!" Priss gritted her teeth. She charged at the boomer, which was moving to its left. Then its body faded like a shadow.

            "What the?" Priss didn't stop going after it but her mind froze for a moment as her suit warned her of the tracking error.

            "Look out Priss!" Nene's voice came to her. "From behind!"

            Priss had to react without thinking. She ducked, turned, and swept with her right leg.

            She missed, as she looked up, the boomer jumped, and the tips of its blades were closing in fast at her visor. It was too late for her to move out of the way.

            "Shit!" Priss screamed, as her body was ready to make its move…

            Linna has never been so scared in her whole life. 

            Every time she took a shot at the boomer, it blocked or dodged completely without much effort. Its beam whip/wire moved like a live snake, and shape shifted like a magician's stick. Sometimes it came straight at her like an blazing arrow, with the tip centimeters away from the joints in her armor; sometimes it whipped her, which made her yelp in pain; sometimes the thing twirled around her, and she had to sling herself out from the closing death loop, and other times it turned into a long stick, and the boomer would try to cane her into submission or crack her hard suit.

            _What the hell is this thing? How could Genom make such human like machine?_

            Nene tried to keep up with the boomer's movements with her newly built into the suit VR Multi-tracking system, with build in sensory augmentation set.

            "Damn it…there, there, there!" She move her hand machine gun right, left, up, and then down, and she hopped side ways three times, and then ducked as the boomer made a swipe at her head. 

            "Ah! It's gonna kill me!" She screamed, and raised her arm. Laser beams shot out, and lanced at the boomer. It blocked with its claws, and then it leaped into air, and head and claws first, it dropped and charged toward Nene.

            "Oh shit!" Nene yelled, as the computer calculated the angle for her counter attack, and sent directly into her brain. "Ah! No, no way!" Instead of counter attacking, she merely scrambled side ways, and got up and ran toward the corner of the room.

            The boomer was right behind her, it swiped and swiped at the back of her head, and she barely dodged it each time. She turned to face the boomer, but found herself on the defensive, blocking with her arms.

            "Nene! What the hell are you doing? Hit it with the new build-in missiles you got!" Sylia's voice rang in her ears.

            "Nene! Kick that god damned thing!" Priss' voice sounded frustrated. "Man, I can't help you there!"

            "Nene! Punch it in the gut!" Linna's voice was frantic. "Finish it and help me here…ahh!"

            "Ok, ok!" Nene screamed at the top of her lungs! "I GOT IT!"

            Instead of running, she charged at the boomer, activating the electro-cannon and the missiles, she stopped short suddenly. "Take that, you freak!"

            The boomer was coming at her full speed flying with its claws extended. It seemed to be surprised, but it quickly changed direction, and stuck itself to the ceiling. It stopped, and seemed to be observing Nene.

            Nene stood akimbo and pointed one finger at it. "What? Are you scared now? Come down here and fight Nene-sama!"

            The other three Knight Saber caught their breaths, as the Madigan-led boomer team stopped for a moment. All eyes focused on the direction where Nene was fighting the clawed boomer.

* * * * * * * * * *

            Priss' mouth was wide open. She looked at where Sylia and Linna stood, and she was sure hidden in the helmets their mouths were the same way. She turned back and stared at Nene.

            Nene, for her part, was still pointing and taunting the boomer mercilessly: "Come on down here and get your beating. What? Chic-ken! Scared, bitch? Come on down here and get your whuppin'! Ya stupid worthless, slow machine!" She had one hand on her hip, and gestured at the boomer with the index finger of the other hand.

            The whole room was suddenly silent, as everyone was staring at her.

            Nene shut up quickly, and looked around. "Wha…what? What's going on here?" She looked around her nervously. "Eh? What…what are you guys looking at? Are we still fighting these things or not?"

            "What the hell were you doing?" Priss yelled impatiently. 

            "Wha…what? I…I was fighting it…" Nene seemed to shrink a little while playing with her fingers. "It…I thought it was rather slow, and it backed off from me a lot, and so I was…um…taunting it…"

            "Everyone listen!" Sylia's voice rang through the communicator port. "We'll take out the red boomer with the claws first. Concentrate your fire on it, and follow…Nene's movements!" She said. She sounded a little bewildered.

            _I can't believe this! Following Nene? _Priss thought to herself. "Alright! Let's do it!" She yelled.

            "Wha…what?" Nene said and sounded much shocked. "But…"

            The rest of the Knight Sabers was coming to her direction. 

            "Alright! We'll do…this…" Nene tried to yell. 

            The VRMTS set beeped a warning, and she saw the clawed boomer coming at her. Its body shot toward her. She wanted to freeze and scream, but the data directly sent into her brain made her body react faster then she would have. She shrieked: "No! Stay away!" She moved right, and then jumped up, back flipped (that scared her for a second because she didn't think she could do that), and landed almost gracefully on her feet. "Guys, attack the boomer's legs and it's neck. Its upper body is heavily armed; the lower body has lighter armor, and it has trouble protecting its neck!" Nene seemed to recover from her surprising agility rather quickly.

            "Got it!" The rest of the Knight Sabers gave the affirmative. With Madigan and the other two boomers hot on their tails, all four Sabers charged at the red boomer as fast as lighting strikes. Hoping to destroy it quickly, Priss made a war cry, activating her knuckle Bomber, she punched directly at its neck. 

            It dodged; whipping its body around, then swiped and knocked Linna's kick out to the side. Then it rolled, and shot across the floor when Nene tried to stomp its legs. 

            "Oh shit, the rest of them are coming!" Nene screamed.

            Madigan yelled something, and the two remaining boomers attacked from air. The blue boomer tried to ram its blades into Priss' back, which she barely dodged, and the green boomer snapped its wrist, and the whip nearly grabbed Linna's ankles.

            "Linna, step backwards, rush left, then jump to the boomer's right, and try to slice it from the left. Priss, aim for the stomach when its arms uncrosses. This one likes to move right, left then jump and air attack…I think…" Nene hesitated for a millisecond, and then barked: "Sylia! Dodge the claw on top and the sword from sideways! Sorry!" She opened her gun port and the gating gun blazed. The red boomer backed off.

            Madigan screamed, as Sylia's blade found her shoulder. "What? Why can you predict my moves?"

            Sylia turned very quickly to Nene, and nodded her thanks. "I think our efforts for that systems is paying off."

            Nene's eyes seemed to be focused intensely on something that no one could see, but she replied: "No problem Sylia. Linna, grab the boomer's whip with your hands, and cut it with the ribbon blade…oh, too slow there. Priss, that's right, you got it!"

            Priss' fist connected with the blue boomer's right chest, the part exploded. She raised her hand and took aim. "Go see your maker!" 

            The boomer dropped its blades, and both its arms rose. Priss' eyes bulged as countless spikes flew out from the boomer's hands. "Mother fucker!" Priss shot her own spikes, and they raced toward the boomer.

            ARRHHHH! The female-like boomer shrieked, as the spikes shot through its head, chest, and shoulders, its arms didn't drop, however, and more spikes came from them.

"Priss, duck 'n' be flat!" Nene yelled. Priss quickly dropped herself low, and kicking her legs backwards as hard and fast as she could while hitting the deck, thus flattening her body against the ground just in time for the boomer's spikes to miss.

Nene shot the red boomer with her own spikes, and then a shot from her electro-stun cannon paralyzed the boomer, and then it blew up. "Yahhh! I got it!" She quickly turned to Linna, who's fighting now one-armed green boomer for Linna had cut off its left arm. She was having a hard time getting through its defenses, which it formed around it by shaping the beam whip into a long stick and spinning it all around itself like an helicopter's top.

            "I'll hold off Madigan, you guys take out that one!" Came Sylia's order.

            "Got it!" Priss got up and immediately raced toward the green boomer, and she fired her rail gun.

            Ding! Dung! The spikes were deflected, and Priss yelled in frustration. Linna tried shooting laser beams at it, but the shots were deflected as well. "What now?" Priss asked Nene.

            "Hmm let's see…" 

            "Do hurry because I think Sylia's still having trouble with Madigan." Linna said hurriedly. 

            "Alright, alright!" Nene gazed at the green boomer for a moment. "Priss, you fake an attack head on, then back off while I shoot my electro-cannon and gatlin, Linna, you attack it from behind and use your knuckle bomber and blow the lower waist of this thing sky high!"             

            The two Sabers acknowledged by running toward the boomer.

            Priss made a war cry, and finding an opening, she punched the boomer with both fists straight at its chest. It pointed its whip and made it into a spear with the tip pointing at her face. She backed off speedily. Nene came at the boomer, and her electros barely missed it, but with her gatlin guns firing, she made the boomer retreat hastily. It raised its head suddenly, and slung its weapon at the air-borne Linna, she snapped her head and the ribbon blades cut the projectile into pieces. She landed right behind the boomer. Activating her knuckle bomber, she punched the boomer in the kidneys, and…

            KAAAAAAAABOOOOOOOM!

            The boomer blew into two pieces, as Linna backed off just in time. She stood still.

            "Is that it?" Linna said.

            "Not yet, there's one more." Priss said and turned to see Sylia and Madigan was standing still. "Now maybe we get some information."

* * * * * * * * * * *

            Sylia stood across from Madigan, who seemed to be panting and shuddering. Sylia herself wasn't doing so well either, she could feel the stinging wound on her back, and her muscles were fatigued and felt like jelly.

            "So? How about you drop your weapon and answer a few questions?" Sylia straightened herself up regally. "There is no use fighting us now. We out number you." Her arms didn't relax, however.

            "How could we lose? Our assassin boomers and my suit out power and out speed yours!" Madigan yelled coarsely in frustration. Her hands shook, and the blade vibrated slightly.

            "You rely on attack patterns too much, and your boomers' movements were too perfect," Sylia said after taking a deep breath. "No matter. Now tell me: what did Quincy want with Miss Vision, and the Origin?" Her voiced sounded calm, but Priss knew she was probably feeling turmoil deep within. She knew what that felt like.

            Madigan looked around her, and at the Sabers. She dropped her beam sword. It hit the floor with a loud clank.

            "You want to know? Very well…" Her voice came slowly.

            "I'll give you your answers. You deserve them after all…" She popped her helmet. Her eyes were calm but a wolfish smile slowly crept up her face.

* * * * * * * * *

            Kou quickly opened the ceiling of the cabin of the elevator, and jumped through the opening to the top. The elevator was at a stand still. He looked up, seeing the door to B-4 was right above his head, he started to pull the doors open with his fingers. When they didn't budge, he stuck a wicked looking blade between the doors and started to pry. 

            He could hear the sound of something trying to get into the elevator cabin from below.

            "Come on, come on." He murmured impatiently.

            The doors opened, and he pulled himself up and through.

            A loud bang echoed through the elevator shaft. Feeling the elevator under him moving up again, he quickly slid through the opening between the doors, and then closed it quickly. He took out a bomb, and set it on the doors, and then ran away quickly.

            The door opened, and he could hear the sound of growling as he ran.

            BOOM!

            "Gone…I hope." He muttered under his breath quickly, before coming to a stop in front of a room. Its doors were torn off. He looked inside.

            The Knight Sabers were standing in front of a female, who was wearing a hard suit unlike theirs. She had got purple hair.

            _Madigan?_

            "Come in, come in…" Madigan said without turning to face him. "The more the merrier…" She paused and then spoke with a cold laugh: "I suppose these boomers failed to get rid of you then."

            Kou took a deep breath and walked in, the first thing he saw was Reika lying under a console, he quickly went to her side, and cradled her head in his arms. His lips trembled, and he longed to kiss her. He looked up instead. "What the hell did you do to Miss Reika?"

            Madigan's eyes turned icy cold. "Don't worry about it, all she's going to feel are few months of headaches and night mares, nothing major. But lacking sleep could be bad for her health…" She snickered.

            "You…" Kou stared at her with as much hate as he could muster.

            "Save it for later. Right now we need to know what they're up to." Sylia said, and then turned to Madigan. "So, you haven't answered my question yet."

            "You wanna know what we wanted to do with Chang's daughter, and…you?" She raised her voice at the end. The Knight Sabers didn't flinch, but Kou found himself looking at Sylia puzzled.

            "So tell us already." Priss said. Kou decided that she sounded impatient.

            Madigan just stared at her. The icy smile never went away.

            Kou felt uneasy, something was making his eyelids jump.

            "AHHHH!!!" 

            Everyone's eyes turned to Sylia. 

            She was screaming so loud, that Kou had to cover his ears. He struggled to look around, and saw the members of the Knight Sabers covering their ears and holding their heads. A searing pain threatened to split his head from the inside.

            The wolfish smirk Madigan had never faded from her face.

            "You want to know what the chairman wanted to do with you? You want to know?" She shrieked like a banshee, and laughed at the same time. "Well, now you will know!"

            "What…" Kou could barely stay conscious, but he shouted toward Madigan's direction: "What about Miss…Miss Reika?"

            "Oh her?" Madigan said with obvious disdain. "He needed nothing from her. Nothing. These minor details never bothered him. Never!" She laughed hysterically. Her laughter mixed with Sylia's totally uncharacteristic scream made Kou's skin crawl.

            _This is going to hell. I hate how many times I've been saying 'hell' lately._ Kou thought miserably.

* * * * * * * * * * * * 

            "My…my head…my head!" Sylia screamed as loud as she could, but that strangle hold on her mind didn't go away. It felt like all she could hear were high-pitched noises, computer beeps, and other strange sounds.

            "Witness the power of the Over Mind Drive!" 

            Sylia turned to see Madigan's wolfish smile. "What…but…how…?"

            "Thank you so very much for delivering yourself to us, Sylia Stingray…all it took was a little bait…" Madigan said with an arrogant tone. "But no matter, with the uplink to satellite, soon the whole human race would be under the mind control of the Chairman of Genom, Quincy Rosencroiz!" She started to laugh haughtily…

            "Uh…ur…AH! AHHH!" Madigan all of the sudden clawed at her head then gripped it with both hands. 

            Sylia forced herself with gargantuan force to lift her head up look at Madigan, who was screeching with inhuman sounding noises. After what seemed like eternality, Sylia understood some of the words that Madigan was trying to utter.

            "…chair…chairman…why…why…why at me…? AHHHH!" 

            It looked like Madigan was going to crush her own skull with her own bare hands. Her body was rigid like a cat that got its tail smashed by a hammer.

            Sylia felt the last of her sanity was going away. She could barely open her mouth: "Ne…Nene…up…uplink your system…to my…suit…" She fell on her knees, and started to curl up. "Hur…hurry…"

            Out of her barely opened eyes she saw Nene crawled over slowly. Sylia wanted to go over to where Nene was and drag her over, but she couldn't move. Finally, she could feel Nene plugging into her suit. "Now…run…run the VR program that I installed last week." She added hastily: "Now, Nene."

            "Hm…ok…" Came Nene's weak reply. 

            For a moment, Sylia felt her head expanding and going to explode. But after what she thought was forever, the headache seemed to be subsiding. She lifted her head very slowly, as if her body would fall apart if she moved faster.

            Everyone else seemed to be ok, except Madigan. She was lying on the ground in an unnatural way. Her arms were bent under her body.

            "Everyone ok?" Sylia could barely hear her own voice. Everyone managed to nod. Priss' voice sounded like a hoarse whisper: "I…I ain't gonna die today, not here on Genom's grounds."

            Sylia didn't exactly pay attention to anyone; she walked over to where Madigan lay. "Tell me." She said softly and briefly to Madigan, after lifting her body up off the ground, and held her head up.

            Madigan's eyes looked like dead fish. "C...h…a…i…r…m…a…n…w…h…y…m…e…?" She looked blank. Her mouth barely moved.

            "Answer me." Sylia tried to speak calmly as she normally would but she couldn't help with the shakiness in her voice. "What role exactly do I have in this?" She stared into Madigan's eyes.

            She wasn't looking back at her. Her eyes seemed to focus somewhere on the ceiling. "But…I…almost…succeeded…I…was…so…close…"

            "Listen to me very carefully: how much capability do I have as opposed to what Largo had?" Sylia asked more urgently.

            Madigan's body twitched like a dear that got ran over by a car, her legs curled up a little. "You…know…I…I…would've…never expose…your….s…e…c…ret…to…to…to...." Blood came out of Madigan's nose, ears, eyes, and mouth, before she could finish, and her body went limp in Sylia's arms. Her eyes stayed wide open.

            Sylia stayed still for a moment. She shook her head, shutting Madigan's eyes, and then after putting Madigan's body down gently, she stood up.

            Everyone was looking at her wordlessly.

            Sylia closed her eyes. She felt all her strength was draining out of her. Her body wobbled.

            "Sylia!" All she heard was shouts of panic before she lost consciousness.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

_The Knight Sabers stood on top of the AD police building, looking toward the Genom Tower. The wind blew fiercely as if trying to blow everything in the city off the ground. Then perhaps something, or someone would come and rebuild it. The way it was supposed to be built._

_Sylia turned to see her friends, her teammates. Everyone was either smiling or chuckling softly. Priss had a smirk; Linna grinned; Nene giggled a little._

_She turned her body and made a sweeping observation of the city. It was full of tall buildings, traffic lights, motionless cars, scattered garbage, and dimmed neon lights. But as far as she could see, they were the only humans left in the city. She looked up; the clouds obstructed the sun. She looked down; the grime and dirt covered the top of the building, which she and the rest of the Knight Saber stood on._

_She took a deep breath, and looked toward the Genom Tower. "Knight Sabers, action!" She was about to jump with her jets on._

_"AHHHHH!!!" Somebody screamed really loud, and all of the sudden, she fell off the roof of the building, plunging toward the street below. Her jets seemed to have died, and no matter how hard she tried to move her body into a more advantageous position, or fired the thrusters, she kept falling toward the ground, head first._

_"Sylia…"_

_Father? Sylia thought. Is that you, father?_

_"Sylia…my dear daughter."_

_Not true. Sylia thought with a bitter smile. When was I ever dear to you?_

_Your research was._

_"You will be more powerful then anything that's ever created…you will become the first of many…the new race…"_

_Garbage. Sylia gritted her teeth. I wanted to be me. But you've never listened._

_This isn't me._

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

            She gasped, and sat up in bed.

            "You alright?" Priss' voice came. It sounded deeper than usual.

            Sylia quickly turned to see Priss, who was standing near the window. Sylia looked around the room, recognizing her own penthouse. She let out a sigh of relief.

            Priss' face looked grim, however. "You alright?" Her voice was low.

            Sylia let out a long and deep breath. She stopped moving for a few seconds. "Not right now, but I will be." She said slowly. "Where are the others?"

            Priss didn't say anything except looking at the window.

            Sylia braced herself. "Priss, I…"

            "What are you?" Priss asked suddenly. Sylia found Priss' eyes searching her face.

            "I…"

            "We're worried alright. If that's what you're wondering." Priss exhaled loudly. "Everything happened so fast lately, nobody could think or do much, but…" She paused, looking uncomfortable. "Ordinarily I don't think about things, I just do them whenever I feel like, but this time, I actually got to thinking, and…" Her head turned toward the window, and then turned back. Sylia found that she didn't like the look on Priss' face. "I'm not so sure what to do about this, and…" She became silent for a moment. "Everyone else's fine right now, _barely_. Kou's taking Reika and his group back with him to the States for treatment, saying he doesn't trust Japanese doctors, Linna and Nene's waiting outside the room." She started walking, stopped at the door. "Come out when you're ready to tell us _everything._" Priss left the room.

            Sylia found herself looking at the closed door. She wanted to see through the door, and look at her fellow teammates right then. But the door was in the way. She hung her head, and then held it with her hands. _Father, it just hurts too much…_

* * * * * * * * *

            Nene found herself staring at the two wordlessly.

            Linna cupped her own chin with her hands, and rested her elbows on the table.

            Priss flipped through the TV channels. 

            "Hey Priss, is Sylia going to be ok?" Nene asked anxiously. "It's hard to do anything around here without her saying something first."

            "How the hell should I know?" Priss grumbled.

            Nene pouted for a moment. She turned to Linna: "What do we have so far?"

            Linna looked back at her with a blank expression, then said: "Genom kidnapped Reika for some information, and used her as a bait to lure us there to kill us. Sylia's got a big headache, and right now we're stuck." She sighed. "I should've taken that offer to work at that trading firm. Jenny Kim at my aerobic class was going to hook me up with that."

            "Not us," Priss said absently. "They were trying to lure _Sylia_ into their trap."

            "Yes, but why her? I mean we know that she's the Origin, and capable to being more powerful, but so what? She's more human then boomer…"

            "Don't say that word." Priss grunted. She dropped the TV remote and lean back, looking at the ceiling.

            "Yeah, but remember what Madigan said," Linna said grimly. "The Over Mind Drive, remember? Somehow there's a connection between Sylia and that."

            "Ok, fine," Nene raised her hands in resignation. "Then you tell me what's the connection between the OMD and Sylia, and how they got into her mind in the first place."

            "By studying Largo's data, and the original data of the boomers."

            Nene turned with everyone else to see Sylia standing in the doorway of her bedroom. Her face was pale but she looked steadier.

            "Sylia!" Nene stood up, ran to her and hugged her. "You're alright!"

            Sylia smiled. However it looked like it took much effort for her to do that.

            Nene turned to see Linna and Priss standing up. 

            "We need you to explain _everything_ to us again." Priss said. She looked unsure.

            Nene felt Sylia's eyes on her for a moment.

            "Very well. From this point on this is what I know."

* * * * * * * * * *  *

            Quincy stared at the now blank TV wall in his room. He rested his chin on the bridge formed with the fingers of his left hand on top of the fingers of his right hand, as he supported his face with his elbows on the table.

            "I see. So the experiment is a partial success, at least." He said.

            "Yes, we were able to form a uplink between the Origin and the Satellites by our remotely controlling both sides." A female voice said. It seemed like there's someone standing in the darkness where the light on the Chairman's table couldn't reach. "The systems responded correctly and when the mind waves were sent, the test subjects responded according to our initial speculations. However, the connection was severed when something interfered with the program," The voice paused. "An outside program that uses VR technology to simulate a 3D environment of the Origin's brain, and the earth itself, or at least the coordinates of which the research facility is located. In any case, the program disrupted the connection between the Origin and the Satellite control system. Therefore the OMD's psycho waves couldn't be sent after that point." The figure stepped out of the darkness. She was a woman with a suit and skirt with purple hair and a haughty face. However, her eyes were all pupils, and no iris. "Please issue new orders, Chairman Quincy."

            The corners of Quincy's mouth moved up. "You will conduct a new research personally on the construction of a new generation of boomers. Oh, and acquire the Origin at all costs. As far as the test subjects…" He leaned back in his chair and sighed, then grinned with some teeth shown. "Exterminate them. This time, use excessive force without prejudice," He paused. "Do not fail me this time, Madigan." He chuckled softly. "I forgot, that failure has already been corrected." Seeing the stiffly stood boomer hasn't moved, he said sternly: "Carry out your orders." 

            "Yes, Chairman." The Madigan look-like boomer said, and left without any hesitancy.

            The heavy blast-proof doors to Quincy's dimly lit office closely slowly. Leaving the old man deep in thought and smiles. He mused.

            _Mechanical obedience is better than human free will._


	5. Hurricane Tonight Part 1

A HUGE THANKS TO SSFSX17, and Mike Huang. Here's 13 Pt.1

BGC Episode 13: Hurricane Tonight, Part 1.

            "So what you're saying is that with the OMD locked on a certain frequency of brain wave, it then can tap into the person's will and make that person move like puppets?" Linna asked while trying to avoid a showing a deep frown. _Frowning makes skin wrinkle._ She thought.

            Sylia shook her head. "Not that. From what I can gather the Over Mind Drive is a psycho-linking/thought pattern-changing device specifically developed at sending messages into human minds. In other words, let's say Genom wants to persuade a certain government official to purchase more military boomers…"

            "Like the defense minister." Nene cut in.

            Sylia turned to glance Nene for a second. "So Genom would then activate the device, and send a certain signals into his or her brain, and change the thought pattern of the person, in term that person will began to think as if he or she wanted to buy Genom's products."

            Priss shrugged. "Sounds like hocus-pocus to me." She said.

            Linna bit her lower lip. "But that doesn't sound so harmful, I mean if Genom's only trying to get people to buy their products, then that means more illegal boomers to clean up, and more jobs for us."

            Sylia chuckled. "Always thinking about finance, aren't you Linna?" She paused, and then her face turned sour. "But here's another thing the OMD can do: It can persuade a large population into agreeing with Genom's policies. And that's not all, remember the killer headache we had at the research facility?"

            Linna swallowed, and then said in a low voice: "That wasn't pleasant."

            Sylia's face turned gloomier: "Theoretically, Genom can use the OMD to seize the minds of a group of people, and then destroy them, or shut down their body functions, or…"

            "That's enough." Priss sat up, and shot a look at Sylia. "So how were we affected? Does this thing automatically track all human minds, like the machine that X-something movie depicted?"

            Sylia stared at the ground speechlessly.

            "Well, do tell," Nene said. "This is about live and death." The tone of her voice conveyed impatience.

            "The OMD usually can't reach people's minds except when it's hooked up or linked to people, but with an uplink through a controlling device, a medium if you will, to the Orbiting Satellites above, then the range of its psycho wave can be increased, or changed to whatever degree the user wishes." (Author's note: that's obviously impossible, since human thought patterns changes a lot, even though from what limited knowledge I have I know there is a general pattern for each person, but a generalized broadcast of so called "psycho-waves" that affects everybody is probably a impossibility. But this is a fan fiction for an 80's anime, so…) She paused, and then said: "For instance, Largo could activate the Satellite Laser Defense with his thoughts. Now imagine if he had the OMD device, and with that he sent his thought waves into the satellite, and in term the satellite sent his commands and orders down to earth as psycho waves, and the waves hits the people…"

            "You just said that the OMD wasn't designed to turn people into puppets." Nene pointed out.

            "No, the OMD itself only sends messages into people's brains, but with the right type of messages, and a human mind behind these messages, who can guarantee that people won't listen and obey them?" Sylia said with a frustrated sounding sigh. "Think these religious programs they play on channel 170. Besides, it _can_ be used to kill a small group of people."

            Everyone was quiet. _That means us if the thing works again. _Linna thought dourly.

            "Thanks to Nene, and the VR program we co-developed, there's a temporary stoppage to Genom's access to my brain and thoughts." She hesitated before speaking: "But we're not sure for how long."

            Linna turned her head and gazed at Nene, who was burying her head on Sylia's right shoulder. _She looked rather gloomy. _ Linna thought. _Ordinarily she would puff up her chest a little and brag._ "This is bad. What can we do?"

            Priss had turned on the TV a while back with the volume down. She turned to watch it. "I think we should charge into Genom building, and blow it all up. Now we got Reika back, we don't have to worry any more about her anymore. Anyway, we _have to_ face them now, don't we Sylia?" She said without turning to watch Sylia. 

            Trying to put a hand on Sylia's shoulders, Linna found herself stopping short. She sighed, and said: "You know I've never thought things could turn out this way, but the truth is even I don't think we have a choice any more. I mean, first it was Irene, and now they almost got Reika. Even what happened to Sylvie and Anri, and the creation of boomers like Largo was at least partially influenced by their doing, and then…"

            "And then guys on the AD Police Force, whose lives are being thrown away for boomer disposal," Nene said with disgust in her voice. "Oh the nerves on these Genom bastards…"

            "Guys, I think you may want to watch this." Priss' voice came and it made everyone turned to look at her, then at the TV. Her voice was really quiet.

            The whole room was deadly silent except the voice of the TV Announcer.

            The Announcer sounded too cheerful despite a typical grim look. _"…Exploded in midair as the private jet was destroyed by an sudden and unusual formation of tropical storm formed out in the ocean near the Kanto area. The storm was classified as category 10…."_

"10? But that would destroyed the whole Kanto area if it ever hits!" Nene exclaimed rather loudly. She quickly looked around, shut up, and stared at the TV. 

            Linna took a deep breath along with the rest of the Sabers. She wanted to look away from the TV, but found she couldn't. 

            The Announcer continued: _"Therefore, what is now being called 'the Final Concert of Vision' is never going to be performed. Many rabid fans are already flooding the record stores, malls, and souvenir shops to get their hands on whatever memorabilia of Vision…"_

            Linna didn't feel anything, and she couldn't move. Her mouth felt like it was bolt shut.

            "Oh my God…" Nene whispered. "Oh my God…"

            Sylia stared at the fashionable cross she wore on her neck and said nothing.

            Priss didn't move. But as Linna dully lowered her gaze, she found Priss was gripping the remote so tight and it was starting to crack.

            The Announcer continued on: _"The hurricane itself is heading toward Mega Tokyo as we speak. Although the meteorologists are still debating the possibility of such storm forming near the Kanto area, we advice all citizens to evacuate the city as soon as humanly possible, and we do not advice people to stay around and try to weather such storm, we also very strongly suggest the surfers to value their lives and leave the beach right now…"_

            "They're coming to get us! They are coming to get us!" Nene screamed hysterically, and she started to run around in panic. "What…what should we do? What should we do?" She stopped suddenly in front of Sylia and gripped Sylia's arms. "Sylia, Sylia…our homes are here, and…I don't want to just leave all this…they…they are coming to get us!" 

            SMACK!

            Linna and Priss turned to see Nene holding her left cheek.

            Sylia's right hand was still in the air.

            "Get a grip of yourself. Even Genom isn't that crazy. There is no way they would destroy a whole city just to get us." Sylia said sternly in a low voice.

            "Maybe not _us_." Priss said in an icy tone. "But for the price of controlling the whole world…it maybe worth it for them to get to _you_ this way." She looked out of the window. Linna could clearly see the disgust on her face.

            "Look, I don't know about you guys, but I'm not going to stay around here and find out what's going to happen." Linna said frantically. "I'm going back to the country side to live with my parents," she paused, and curled her lips. "And get married."

            "How far can you go before the hurricane get to you, may I ask?" Sylia said in an oddly soothing voice.

            "As far as I can to get the hell away from here!" Linna shrieked. She began to charge toward the door. When she ran by Priss, Priss grabbed her arm, and the force made her stop dead in her tracks, as she jolted to a halt. "Stop! Let me go now!"

            "Linna…" Priss said in a low, hoarse whisper. "There is nowhere to run. Not in the short time we do have." She dropped Linna's arm, and smacked her left palm with her right fist. "These goddamned sons of bitches…" She muttered under her breath.

            Nene seemed to be breathless. She was still holding her cheek.

            "My guess is, Genom's abandoning the Tower here. As unlikely as that scenario is, that's what we have to assume." Sylia said in a calm voice. "The source of the hurricane is somewhere above the Pacific. We're going to find the source." Her voice was firm.

            "And then what?" Nene asked in a small voice. "We're going against a Typhoon!"

            Sylia stared at her face. "We're going to take it out."

            The room was deathly silent.

            Priss spoke first. "At least that gives us something to do." 

            "Then let's get to it. Nene, you find info from the Central Weather Agency, and while you're at it, get into Genom's military Super Computers and find the location of the Weather weapon, Linna and Priss, you guys…"

* * * * * * * * * 

            Quincy's angry face appeared on the screen of the main control room inside Central Weather Agency's weather report satellite/Orbital station. "Who the hell ordered the commencement of the weapon's testing program?" His eyes were wide and full of menacing anger. With a snarl he demanded again, pounding the desk. 

            "Ah…" A fresh faced young engineer said with a trembling voice. "Y…y…you…you did, sir…you ordered it…two… two hours ago…" His teeth chattered.

            "Fucking idiot! I did no such thing!" Quincy's face threatened burst through the screen, even though the tech knew that wasn't going to happen. He cringed, and quickly ran, while saying: "I…I'll go get the Station Manager!"

            Manager Narita came and said the same thing. Quincy frowned while cupping his chin with the thumb and index fingers of his right hand. "Show me the communication record."

            "Y…Yes sir." The manager cowered and shook like a leave in a storm, then he pressed a button.

            _"I order you to test the Hurricane generator immediately!" _Quincy's voice filled the speakers, even though the Quincy on screen was silent. 

            _"But, sir this…this coordinate is…" _The Manager's voice filled the speakers, while the real manager was bowing and scraping in from of Quincy's image on the screen.__

            "Do as you're told, or your ass isn't just fired now, but for the rest of your miserable life, understand?"

            _"Yes…yes sir! Right away, sir!"_ The Manager's voice paused for a second. _"Began countdown! Initiating the Typhoon creation program! Remotely start the Storm generator above the Pacific!_" 

            The symphony of "Hallelujah" filled the speakers. The station Manager's face turned deathly pale.

            "What's with the music? Anyway, this is interesting…I didn't order the weapon to be used, and yet…" Quincy looked thoughtful for a second. "Shut it down, now."

            "Yes…yes sir…the music…I thought the music is cool…makes me feel powerful." The Manager said.

            "SHUT THE GENERATOR DOWN NOW!"

            "Yes sir, yes sir…ah, you see…we can't stop it for some reason…" The Manager looked scared and resigned at the same time.

            "What?" Quincy's face turned beet red. "Do something about this." His head turned to the side. "Madigan, have the programmers at the HQ shut down the program and the machine remotely right now!"

            There was a long pause.

            "Madigan! Do as you're told!" Quincy's face still turned sideways. He was barking toward someone off screen.

            "I'm afraid that isn't going to be possible, Chairman Quincy…" the boomer Madigan's voice came softly and deadly. "You see, Largo-sama said no stopping until the whole Mega Tokyo is wiped out, so that Genom's all important home base will be gone…"

            Bang! Bang! Bang!

            Quincy pulled out a gun, and shot the Madigan-boomer. "You bastard! Largo, you bastard!"

            "Ah, my dear Quincy. You may have trapped me and gotten away last time, but this time I have the upper hand…"

            The image on the screen split, and Largo's face appeared on the right, while Quincy's were shoved to the left.

            "Your clones certainly are useful, Quincy, and hacking into the Madigan clone was not as hard as I thought it would be…" Largo had a patronizing look on his face. "You maybe an slick old fox, but your toys are not quite as _bright_ as you are." He paused long enough for Quincy let out a grunt between clenched teeth, and then continued with a condescending leer: "Nice plaything you got over the pacific by the way, and since Chang's daughter happened to be in the area, I thought I'd send some wind in their sails."

            Quincy's teeth gritted for a moment, before a smirk appeared on his face. "So what? What do you think that will do? I'm still alive and well, and Mega Tokyo and the Genom Tower can be rebuild." His eyes glowed. "You think you can get to me by using my weapon and my boomers against me? How naïve." He sunk back in his chair. "I'm already away. Somewhere you will never find me. Never."

            Largo's smile didn't change; it just turned colder. "You mean the super computer that contains the personality we know as 'Quincy Rosencroitz' has already been shipped into space, and probably implanted into a Ultra Boomer Final Version?"

            "What?" Quincy looked shocked. "But…how…"

            "Last time I was sure you were in that room. Every available source and all my sensors and mind scanners gave me the same answer, and yet I found a boomer clone in your place. I did some thinking after my temporary disablement, and the only conclusion I had was this – you have scattered yourself into your clones long ago, but you did save a original copy – which you incorporated into the main computer of Genom, which controls the minds of the clones. Now once the OMD was completely activated, all you needed was something to help you to broadcast your thoughts and will all over the world…" He paused. "I, on the other hand, already had the ability to uplink to the satellite, and I wanted the OMD so that I can control the world, and reach to all the boomers with my will…" He laughed coldly. "No matter. It seems like we're in the same shape, and having the almost the same goals. You thought by merely moving boomers around and giving them orders was good enough, I, however wanted to awaken them all to my cause." He sneered egotistically. "I think once again, we're at a stalemate here. I know where you are, and you have a good idea where I am, but we can't exactly attack each other without causing interstellar wars…" 

            The whole Station beeped, and shook slightly with Largo's face on every view screen. Largo continued: "So here's the X-factor: The Knight Sabers. Their leader Sylia Stingray is the same as me in many ways. In fact, I would have to call her 'Mother'. For she's like the Eve to my race, and right now, she's trying to track down the Weather generator, and eventually, she will find this satellite…"

            Manager Narita was giving out evacuation orders.

            Largo continued: "Once she finds this station, I would have to confront her, but see, here's the fun part: she's going to find the information on your whereabouts."

            Quincy snickered: "I will long gone by then."

            Largo nodded: "Sure you will, my dear Quincy, unless all of the sudden you find the jets on your space battle cruiser disabled completely, and the generators to the engine gone." He pause and looked to the side. "Yep." He nodded again.

            Quincy's eyes widened, as he looked like he was staring at something in the distance. Then he clenched his jaws. "Damn you, Largo! You won't get away with this!"

            Largo took a deep breath and heaved it out. "Maybe. Then again, even in this practically immobilized state I don't expect to lose either. See you around, Quincy Rosencroitz." The image of his face fizzled slightly. "Oh, and I doubt you can really use the escape pod since you have now become the Central Computer Boomer of the ship." Largo's mug slowly disappeared, leaving only the sound trail of his maniacal laughter.

            Quincy's twisted face remained for a moment, before it disappeared off the screen.

            The personnel of the station were running around like chickens with heads cut off.

* * * * * * * * * * *

            Sylia tightened her grip on the private assault shuttle's control stick. "How's the search? Found it yet?"

            "I'm having some trouble pinpointing the exact coordinate of the hurricane generator. One thing I'm certain though, there's something in the atmosphere that's controlling it…there!"

            They arrived at the place. 

            Everyone turned silent.

            There were huge and thick clouds in front of them. Strong gusts were shaking their craft as if it was made of thin plastic. The creaking sound was making everyone tense.

            "The machine is in the eye of the storm." Nene said simply.

            "There is no way we can get through _that_ without being torn apart." Linna said with concern written all over her face.

            Sylia frowned. She turned to Nene. "You said there's probably something controlling the generator from somewhere else?"

            "Yes, probably from…" Nene paused for a second with her fingers busy typing and moving the tracking ball and clicking. "Up there in space." She pointed toward the ceiling.

            "From above…" Priss mumbled.

            "A defense satellite?" Linna chimed in.

            "Not likely. That's designed mainly for laser defense," Sylia said with some contempt. "I'm thinking probably the weather forecasting Space Station X-19999." She turned to Nene, who nodded. 

"Ok, I'm on it." Nene said. 

"How are we going to get into space?" Linna asked hastily. "This ship isn't designed for that, or for space combat."

Sylia pressed a button, a familiar broadcast came through: "…opportunities in the newly developed space stations and frontier colonies…" She shut it off.

"You mean…" Priss' eye widened. "But the space shuttle service is temporarily suspended because of the hurricane…"

"So let's just borrow it." Sylia said with a frown. "Priss, are you actually hesitating? Is Leon's law abiding ways influencing you?"

Priss groaned as everyone else giggled or chuckled. "Hell no! I was just wondering out aloud!" She blushed. "Well, then what are we waiting for? Let's go!"

"The calculation of the trajectory of the space station and our window of approach is complete." Nene said with a confident smirk. "I'm way ahead of you as usual." She winked at Priss, who stuck the tip of her tongue out at her.

"Very good Nene. Ladies, let's go get ourselves a private space shuttle service. First class seats with all the special accommodations!" Sylia said with a tight grin. 

"Yahooooo!" Nene yelled.

"I hope this works." Linna wiped some sweat off her forehead.

Priss stared at the ceiling for a while. "Leon. Take care." She muttered under her breath. The scene that happened between them two hours ago appeared in her mind.

* * * * * * * * * 

            "Leon." Priss said without looking at him. The two were having a drink at the now empty bar at "Hot Legs". The place had lost its usually rowdy crowd.

            "Priss." He nodded. "So I take it this is where you go alone?" He took in a lung full of air, and let it out slowly. "With the other Knight Sabers, I mean."

            "Yeah, looks like this is it." She waved. "I guess it can't be helped."

            "Let me go with you." Leon leaned toward her. "Actually, everybody at the force could help out…"

            "Forget it, Leon." Priss shrugged. "You guys don't have the technology to deal with this."

            "And you do?" Leon spread out his arms. "We're talking about a huge hurricane here!" He put a hand on Priss' shoulder. "Look, let me go ask Todo, and maybe we can get the national defense…"

            "And how are you going to get them involved?" Priss snapped back. "You think they would go against Genom?" She stared at him for a long time. Her eyes gradually softened. "There is nothing you can do." She turned her head. Her right hand went to cover her chest for the briefest second, before she formed a fist with that hand. "It's time for me to go."

            Leon stepped up to her. Pulling her close, he looked deep into her eyes.

            "Wh…wha…what?" Priss said with a blush on her face as her eyes widened. She looked like she froze completely.

            "Be careful, Priss. If you can't deal with this, then I…" Leon's voice dipped an octave. "Come back alive and we'll figure something out." He let go of her arm.

            Priss stared back at him for a moment, then she looked at her arm where he held her for a moment. She put a hand over that part for a moment longer. "See ya." She turned and walked out of the door without looking back.

            _Try to stay alive._ She pled silently.

* * * * * * * * *

            The fight for the space shuttle was surprisingly short, give the fact that the boomers surrounding the spaceport were older models that didn't have much firepower, speed, or agility against the Knight Sabers' newest versions of their hard suits. 

            Priss tossed the half blown up green monster over the platform, and gave the area a quick survey. "Is that it, then?"

            Sylia looked thoughtful. "No Doberman series around. That is certainly strange." She looked up at the shuttle with the huge thrusters on the top of the platform, which looked like the starting point of a roller coaster. "Ladies, this is it! Looking sharp!"

            The Sabers uttered an acknowledgement. About 15 minutes later, they were in space.

            The velvet sea of blackness full of glittering stars that looked like diamonds had always fascinated Linna since she was a child. She turned to Sylia, who was in the pilot seat: "Hey, Sylia, can I look around? I want to sit in one of the passenger seats in back." She received an acknowledgement and she left the cockpit.

            She climbed the stairs and went straight into the first class area…

            "AHHHH!" 

            The shriek startled Linna. She recoiled and almost screamed herself. She tightened her lips, and pointed her gauntleted hand toward the direction of the sound, which were behind a seat in the middle quite a few rows toward the back. "Who or whatever you're, stand up and raise your hands!" She shouted with a relative steady voice. "Or I'll start blasting!"

            She narrowed her eyes when after a heart stopping 10 seconds and no one responded. She curled her lips. "Alright, this is your last warning, I'll give you 5 seconds. 5, 4, 3, 2…"

            "Please ma'am, don't shoot, don't shoot!" 

            Linna's eyes widened as a small child about 5 to 7 years old stood up from behind the seat, and slowly stepped onto the isle. "I…I mean you no harm, ma'am."

            "Ma'am…_ma'am_?" Linna's face scrunched up for a second, but she lowered her lethal arm. "Are you ok, little miss?" She slowly walked toward the girl with some hesitation. The incident about Cynthia wasn't too far away from her mind. "Hey, you alright? What are you doing here? It's dangerous to be here," she said.

            The girl looked at her Linna's gloved hand on her shoulder. "But you're here, too, _ma'am._ Isn't it dangerous for someone your age to be here?" 

            Linna tried very hard to hide a grimace, she force her jaws to unclench. "I'm 20, thank you very much, and that wasn't a nice thing to say." She straightened herself up. Taking the little girl's hand, she started toward the stairs. "Come on, little missy, let's go see some of my friends."

            "Who are they? And who are you?"

            "We're the Knight Sabers."

            "Hmm…are you the bad guys?"

            Linna stopped briefly at the stairs before walking down slowly, holding the little girl's hands carefully. "No, we're the good guys. We fight for the good of everyone," she said.

            "So that's why you're putting people out of jobs?"

            Linna was at the bottom of the stairs, and she lifted the girl off, and put her down on the ground gently. "What?" Linna bent down.

            "I said you guys are putting people out of jobs." The little girl cocked her head to her right. 

            Linna stood up. "Right. Let's go," she said. 

* * * * * * * * * 

            Sylia was looking at the coordinates Nene furnished when Linna came in with the child. The rest of Sabers gave sounds of surprise. "How cute!" Nene squatted and waved at the girl, who cringed and backed into a corner. "But I won't hurt you! See! I'm just a person like you." Nene popped her visor, and smiled broadly. 

            The little girl frowned very briefly, and then looked down.

            Sylia cocked an eyebrow. "So this is the little missy that you found…" She lowered her voice. "Come here, Linna." 

            Linna walked over, and leaned toward Sylia. "What's up?" she said.

            "Don't you think it's strange that everyone else left the spaceport long ago, but she stayed behind? Have we seen anybody came to look for her?"

            "Nope. When I asked her about her parents she just shook her head."

            "Just like Cynthia…" Sylia put a hand to her hip, the other hand typed something on the instrument panel. "Let's keep an eye on her. I don't like this."

            Linna merely nodded.

            On the other side, Nene gave a triumphant whistle. "Looks like we can get into the space station in two minutes thirty-seven seconds."

            "Everybody get ready, then. Linna, you take care of the little missy…" Sylia said. She turned to face the girl. "What's your name?"

            The girl drew herself to full height. "Setsuna Mason."

            Sylia narrowed her eyes. "I'll be sure to remember that," she said.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

            "All escaped…" Linna muttered under her breath. "Well, I guess they heard about our coming, and just left."

            Nene frowned. "Wait a minute…" She tapped a few keys on the control panel. "Here…there…there!" She punched a button, and the Knight Sabers gasped together with the young girl.

            Largo's face filled the screen.

            "No wonder we got in without any incidents," Sylia said.

            "It's probably a trap…" Priss swung her fist at the screen. She spat.

            "It's been a while, Knight Sabers…" Largo's voice boomed over the whole station, and the Sabers could feel it vibrate. "I…"

            "You're going to pronounce our doom, I'll bet." Nene said. She pouted with a hand on her hips, and the other hand pulled down her lower eyelid of her left eye. "I swear, that gets so old!" She sighed loudly. "I wish I wasn't the one who pulled your face up!"

            "Oh but it's already too late!" Linna said.

            "Yeah, great job there Nene!" Priss said. She stuck her tongue out at Nene, who returned the facial gesture.

            "Silence!" Largo yelled. "I will not tolerate such insolent behavior!"

            "Oh yeah? You know you sound just like Old Quincy!" Nene taunted with her right hand, waving her fingers. "Why don't you come on out and fight us!"

            Largo grinned with his teeth bare. "Who's the little girl behind you?"

            Setsuna Mason hide herself behind Priss, who seemed annoyed but didn't move. 

            "Shouldn't you know?" Sylia asked icily. "After all, she's your daughter…or more precisely, your creation."

            The rest of the Knight Sabers simply stared Setsuna, then Sylia, then finally at Largo, who everyone now knows was Brian J. Mason. (Writer's note: sure…right…can you tell that 2040 TV is influencing me here?)

            "But that means…" Linna's jaw dropped. 

            "This little girl?" Nene stepped back after mumbling to herself.

            Priss turned around immediately, took a few steps away from the child, and gave her a sharp glare. 

            "Now Setsuna, why don't you show them what you can do?" 

            The Knight Sabers turned to stare at one of the two arch-nemesis they faced. "How shameful! Using a little girl as your weapon!" Priss said. "How about fight fairly for once?"

            "Ha! This is a fair fight. Fighting Setsuna is as good as fighting me!" Largo grinned then sighed contently. "So, enjoy your last moment in this…"

            "Shut up! I've had enough of you!" Priss said. She turned to face the girl. "Come on kid! Give me your best shot!"

            Setsuna looked around for a moment, before focusing her eyes on the screen. "Can I kill them? Can I really?" 

            "I'll be watching." Largo said.

            The Knight Sabers raised their hands, ready for battle.

            The shaking and the humming of the station never stopped; it just got stronger.


End file.
